MEL support to the British Council’s Youth Connect programme  

An initiative of the British Council, the Youth Connect programme (2022 – 2025) seeks to empower young people to drive positive change in their communities as well as helping to address global challenges, such as climate change, polarisation, employability and inequality.  The programme operates in partnership with a range of local, national and international organisations to create spaces for young people to learn, connect and collaborate for positive change  through developing skills and motivating young people, creating opportunities and pathways for them to use those skills positively, and strengthening ecosystems of support for young people. As a result, young people feel ready to shape brighter futures for themselves, their communities and their countries. 

The programme aims to reach over one million young people (face to face and online) and is being delivered in over 27 countries across six regions: East Asia, EU, Wider Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), sub–Saharan Africa, and South Asia.  

The intended programme outcomes are: 

1. Young people develop skills and are motivated to apply them. 
2. Young people apply skills in their communities. 
3. Young people identify and challenge gender and other inequalities. 
4. A stronger ecosystem for positive, values-driven youth action. 

British Council commissioned INTRAC to independently review the pilot phase (2022 – 2023) and develop a monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) approach for the main phase (2024 – 2025). INTRAC was then subsequently contracted as the MEL partner for the main phase.  

For the review of pilot projects, INTRAC carried out over 100 key informant interviews and focus group discussions, and reviewed documentation to produce a portfolio analysis, learning synthesis, and project case studies.  

Following the evaluation of the pilots, INTRAC worked with British Council to develop the programme’s MEL approach, revise the theory of change (ToC), and set out the MEL framework and tools for the programme. The MEL approach is intended to support portfolio-level decision-making, and takes a utilisation-focussed and developmental approach to support the programme to understand it’s impact and consolidate learning on specific areas. MEL tools have included a partner survey with implementing partner organisations,  a large-scale snapshot survey with young people engaged across multiple countries, and a learning agenda that explores distinct ‘learning questions’ guiding research into key areas of interest identified by the British Council and INTRAC – scale and depth of programming; working in conflict and gender equality and social inclusion.