This is a joint study, by the World Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This volume focuses on the topics in data collection, analysis, and use that were raised in its companion book, Project Monitoring and Evaluationin Agriculture. The introductory chapter summarizes these topics in the contextset by the companion volume, which documented the importance ofmonitoring and recommended that ambitious evaluations be done onlyselectively. Later chapters in this book further explain the data collection and analysistechniques referred to in the companion volume. The book is thus selective;it does not provide comprehensive coverage of all methods. Furthermore,for those methods it does cover, it advocates simplicity andeconomy, which the authors believe are necessary given the limited resources ofmany development projects. Because each chapter deals with a specific area of data collection, analysis,or use, it is somewhat discrete and autonomous. Although there issome logic to the chapter sequence, the book is meant to be consulted as aparticular issue arises, rather than read straight through.