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The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program is a secondary and university scholarship and support Program for economically disadvantaged but academically promising youth with a demonstrated commitment to social change. The Program is a $500 million, 10-year initiative to educate an estimated 15,000 young people, primarily in Africa. The Scholars Program is being implemented by a network of education institutions and non-profit organizations. The core Program interventions include comprehensive scholarships, leadership development and life skills training, academic and psychosocial support, mentorship, internships, and support for students transitioning from school to work.

Evaluating a program with this wide variety of activities and partners presents a compelling case study of challenges commonly faced by program evaluators and implementers. How do evaluators ensure objectivity and independence while working closely enough with implementers to address their concerns and to efficiently leverage existing processes for data collection? How can a program-wide evaluation assess the impacts of activities that are carried out differently in each implementation context and adjusted over time to best serve the needs of participants?

During the development of a monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework for the Program, Mathematica and The MasterCard Foundation addressed these challenges through an approach that strived to be collaborative and inclusive, while maintaining objectivity and rigor. The process encouraged partners to engage in every stage of the MEL development, distinguishes between Program- and partner-level measurement activities, and sought to ensure that data collection and measurement strategies would remain objective. This paper will describe the final evaluation design, critically assess the challenges and the approach taken, and will share lessons learned from the framework development process.