Effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is considered essential if comprehensive SHN programmes are to be scaled up and sustained. Many resources have been developed by organizations to assist the M&E of SHN programmes in low income countries.

The diversity of M&E resources that exists reflects the fact that SHN programmes are contextual and no one size fits all. Increasingly, however, stakeholders have wondered whether a generic M&E framework, adaptable to the local settings of different programmes, would synergise existing resources and avoid duplication that exists between different guidelines.

Thus, this review was undertaken to investigate the international consensus on the development and dissemination of a generic M&E framework for SHN programmes in low income countries.

Among others findings, the review argues that: there is a strong demand for a generic M&E framework for SHN programmes, and common health, education, and nutritional outcomes and programmatic processes based on the ‘FRESH core activities’ should form the basis of a generic M&E framework.