What Does Digital Transformation in MEL Really Look Like? With Aasit Nanavati of DevResults

[00:00:01] Aasit: 2025 was a year that really brought transformational change and potentially even trauma to the way that we saw the foreign assistance landscape. Not gonna lie. First podcast, so I am a little nervous. I’ve never really done a podcast. And then in 2017, eight years ago, I joined DevResults, which is a monitoring, evaluation and learning technology platform. Again, as we have seen this significant shift in foreign assistance in 2025, it’ll be in 2026 and 2027 and onward that we see how that shift actually is materializing.

[00:00:39] Marta: Welcome to Survey and Beyond, the data collection podcast by SurveyCTO. I’m your host, Marta Costa. Each episode brings you expert tips, tools, and insights to make data collection smarter, safer, and easier. Let’s dive in.

[00:00:57] Marta: Today on Survey and Beyond, we are joined by Aasit Nanavati, Chief Strategy Officer at DevResults, a monitoring and evaluation platform used across over 160 countries to manage and make sense of complex development programs. Aasit also teaches at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he equips the next generation of policy professionals with the tools to use data for impact. With deep experience in digital development and a sharp eye for systems-level change, Aasit joins us to unpack his thoughts on the role of digital tools in foreign aid. So welcome, Aasit, to the podcast.

[00:01:38] Aasit: Thank you. It’s great to be here, and I appreciate your time, and I’m excited for the interview.

[00:01:41] Marta: Me too. So, to start us off, could you share a bit about your background? How did you start in this sector, and how does that connect to your current work in that results?

[00:01:54] Aasit: The way I started was I studied public health. My undergraduate degree was in a Bachelor of Science in Public Health. My master’s was in Epidemiology. I worked with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health within their division of epidemiology for a number of years, really focusing on how data can be used for decision-making. At the time, I was focused on each one-on-one, influenza. So, we were tracking influenza rates in 2009, 2010, 2011, and creating public health programming around the city of Philadelphia to address kind of the issues around the spread of the disease. That really got me interested in the foundational understanding of how data could be used as a vehicle for decision-making. So, in 2012, after I got my master’s, I moved to Mumbai, India, where I worked with an organization, a nonprofit called SNEHA, the Society for Nutrition, Education, and Health Action in Mumbai. And what I worked on was the prevention of violence against women and children within a region in Bombay called Dharavi. Dharavi is a large slum population, one of the largest in Asia. And we worked with the organization that had been in the community for a number of years in really creating resources for these victims and for the population in general. And what I mean by resources: it was a place where victims could come in and get access to resources like medical care, like legal help, like education, as well as financial training to really have them become independent in their own communities, in their own families. What I realized during this time was kind of building on that idea that data is really a transformational building block in how decisions are being made. So, I worked with the organization. I worked with the team. I worked with the community to understand what information they have. And as we know in foreign assistance, as we know in international development, as we know in global health, oftentimes, a lot of that data gets lost. It’s fragmented. It lives in folders. It lives in physical folders. It lives in Excel sheets, Word documents and email threads. So, that really started building this idea that we need to do better with the information that we have access to. And in 2013, I moved to Kampala, Uganda, working with USAID on their HIV and tuberculosis program. There, it was called the STAR program, strengthening tuberculosis and AIDS response. So, I was in Kampala working with USAID as a global health core fellow. And again, really working on the M&E side, monitoring and evaluation. This is around where my career, kind of, transitions and really starts focusing on M&E, monitoring and evaluation. In 2015, I moved again from Kampala to New Delhi, this time, still focusing on tuberculosis and HIV. I was working with a program called TB Harega Desh Jeetega, which, if TB loses, the country wins. And what we really focused on was how do we scale that advocacy and education effort across India to strengthen the message that there are different modalities of treatment, there are different resources, there are different ways to deal with tuberculosis diagnosis across India. And I did that for a year before I moved here, here being Washington, DC. So, I lived and continue to live in Washington, DC or the Washington, DC area. I worked with a USAID program on health finance and governance, specifically in the South Asia region. So, working in India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam on strengthening health financing, and I worked on a national aid spending assessment for Cambodia. I did that for about two years before that program ended, and then I took a little bit of a break from the development world, and I moved to Philadelphia, where I started a company in food delivery. So, working with small share farmers around Philadelphia, around Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC, New Jersey, working with small share of farmers. We had a full-on grocery store. I was delivering groceries. Really, we were building a software to see if we could increase the procurement of groceries, and let me take a step back. That was to build out a software to see if we can stop the waste of food across the Philadelphia region, so we could create better kinds of supply chains around food procurement with grocery stores and things like that, and then also work with small share farmers in the area. And then in 2017, eight years ago, I joined DevResults, which is a monitoring, evaluation, and learning technology platform. It was a system that I was excited to use as a former practitioner of M&E, and it’s a system that I’m very proud of, and we can talk about what DevResults has become over the last eight years. And in that time, I’ve also become an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Elliott School for International Affairs, and I’m a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations here in Washington.

[00:06:41] Marta: Wow. That’s an incredible experience in very different projects and cities, countries, and sectors, which is amazing, but a lot related to how you are using data and technology to make the world a better place. And so I really want to dive into that topic of how you are working in M&E, how you are working with the technology, but let’s zoom out a little bit and let’s define some concepts for our conversation. And I would maybe start with foreign assistance. So, you know that foreign assistance is something that has changed a lot in the past year, mostly. So, how would you describe foreign assistance today?

[00:07:30] Aasit: Sure. I mean, I think everyone that’s probably listening to this podcast, everyone that works in our sector, 2025 was a year that really brought transformational change and potentially even trauma to the way that we saw the foreign assistance landscape. It’s a real inflection point now. The way in which we have traditionally done foreign aid work has dramatically changed. And how we as a sector, and that includes the government, that includes nonprofit, that includes the private sector, that includes philanthropy, that includes the entire ecosystem of how we deliver foreign assistance across vulnerable communities throughout the world. And I think that’s kind of one of the points that’s very important to acknowledge, is that we’re facing more frequent and complex crises. It’s not that it just stopped, you know, the climate change issues are still occurring. Conflict and displacement is still occurring. Issues around some of the most complex challenges in parts of the world are still happening on day to day basis. So, we really do need to focus on restructuring and rebuilding the foreign assistance landscape. And I think there’s growing pressure and a bit of a mandate to create a system that does focus on accountability, adaptability, and really demonstrating results and showing that foreign assistance is still going to be done. We are still going to have a foreign aid sector. It’s just going to be done in a way that needs to, hopefully, use data as kind of its core principle in decision making, which is something that I’m excited about, is how do we really focus on delivering the aid that those communities need.

[00:09:12] Marta: And maybe part of that is how we are using digital tools, which is your expertise. So, can you also share what are we talking about when we talk about digital tools in the context of foreign assistance?

[00:09:27] Aasit: Yeah. I mean, I think the ecosystem of digital technology in foreign assistance or in international development is pretty wide-ranging. You have program and results management, so the monitoring evaluation systems that organizations are using, financial and grants management systems. So, how do you manage awards? How do you manage subawards, budgets, disbursements, and compliance requirements? Speaking with you from SurveyCTO, data collection and field tools. So, how are colleagues in countries and communities actually managing and collecting that information? Where does that information go? Where does it live? How does it interact with different technology tools? That’s another kind of big bucket: interoperability and data infrastructure. So, how are we communicating with one another? How are we creating a system that your information communicates with our information to create a single source of truth? So, leadership and others across what I think is the value chain are able to use that information. And then, of course, there are analytic tools and emerging technologies. Obviously, if I don’t say AI, I’m sure someone will say, “How could I miss it?” But how do you use these emerging technologies? How do we implement them? And more importantly, how do we govern some of these new technologies that are rapidly, kind of, changing the way work is being done, not only in foreign assistance, but I would say across industries.

[00:10:47] Marta: Absolutely. And in your work, I imagine that you support a lot of organizations, modernizing and digitizing their systems, specifically in monitoring, evaluation, and learning. And this is something that we have discussed a lot in the podcast before, because in SurveyCTO, we do that too in the context of data collection, specifically. What do you feel are the main challenges for these organizations to modernize and to adopt these digital tools in their work?

[00:11:18] Aasit: Yeah. I mean, I think digital transformation is a complex issue. It’s a very difficult kind of thing to get right. And there are a few different concerns or challenges that I’ve seen over time. First is, kind of, a misalignment between the incentives and the mandates. I think the second is kind of fragmentation. That’s a real big point of concern, is that when you have fragmentation of systems and processes, you have a high risk of losing information and data. And that’s not just about where information lives or how people are using it, but it’s also about how information communicates with one another. If organizations are implementing similar programs, but they don’t have a capability of sharing data, if a donor needs to get structural information from an implementer, but that information, that data is living in Excel sheets, Google drives and SharePoint, it’s hard to collate that information. I know. I used to do that. That was part of my career. I used to be the one who got the data call whose heart would drop, whose anxiety would increase, and I would really start working hard to make sure I got it right. But I didn’t have that single source of truth. I didn’t have that ability to do a one-click export of information. I didn’t have a dashboard and visualizations, which I think creates duplication. But more importantly, I think it also creates fatigue. I think there’s technology fatigue where you try and try and try new systems that are not purpose-built. And I think it’s important to use technology and tools that are really purpose-built in our sector because we have to get it right. If we don’t get it right, we run the risk of a lot of time going by and then kind of realizing, like, this system didn’t work, but that’s one year, three years, ten years down the road. And what that really means is that you weren’t able to use technology as a fundamental driver for impact. You weren’t using your information and your data. You’re course correcting. You’re trying to deal with the challenges of the technology instead of the challenges of the implementation and the programs. So, I think that’s quite important. And finally, what that does is it erodes trust. And I think a big part of a lot of the work that we do is ensuring that we can trust that work. We can trust our colleagues to give us the correct information, and we can trust that the decisions that are being made are coming from a point of information and data that’s already gone through QC quality control, already gone through validation, already gone through governance, and really understanding that the information that you have is information that you can use as that driver for decision making. I think it builds resilience, but it also builds that trust. And I think that’s a core principle of what I think a lot of organizations are trying to do when they go through the digital transformation process.

[00:14:00] Marta: Definitely. Another, more specific challenge that a lot of organizations face is the fact that they work with multiple actors. And I think this happens externally and internally from my experience. Organizations need to share data with a lot of different partners, governments, the private sector, NGOs, but also, even inside each organization, they have a lot of different actors involved, either in data collection, data processing, or data analysis. And what do you feel is the main challenge to successfully implement these systems, taking into account all of these different actors involved in these different processes?

[00:14:44] Aasit: Yeah. No. That’s a great question. I think one of the things that comes to mind is really, like, over-customization and reinvention. We don’t wanna reinvent the wheel. We want to move forward with innovation without duplicating the efforts of systems and technology that already exist. That’s what allows you to leapfrog into emerging technologies and new kinds of ways of doing things when you’re not thinking about why isn’t this working for years. I think it’s kind of a term, but, like, legacy loop. You fall into a legacy loop of systems that are not working, but you don’t know why. You wanna invest more to get that right. You keep going on and on and on. In the meantime, you still have a lot of information and data coming from parts of the world that we’re working in. So, you have to rely on the tools that do work. So, you often get trapped in that legacy loop where you’re trying to build and customize something that’s not purpose-built, and then you’re using tools that are fragmented because you know that if you put it in Excel, at least you have it. At least it’s there. But at DevResults, you know, what we’re really trying to focus on is moving away from that and using a system that we know is proven, it’s useful, it’s in use. It’s technology that’s not experimental. It’s technology that’s been proven. And now a decade later, we can say that with confidence that DevResults is used across the ecosystem, working with, again, going with what I was saying earlier, working and implementing at the portfolio and the enterprise level with government agencies, with nonprofits, with philanthropy, with the private sector. It’s that ecosystem that we need to create in order to operate successfully.

[00:16:22] Marta: Makes a lot of sense. And earlier last year, you published an article. The article was called Pathways for Impact from Public Health to Human-Centered Digital Transformation for Penn’s healthcare innovation program, and you were emphasizing in this article that true digital innovation is transforming how people interact with essential services. Can you just unpack this concept for our listeners?

[00:16:52] Aasit: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think when it comes to technology and technology adoption, particularly when it’s programs that are meant to increase utilization of resources, whether that’s in the public health landscape, agricultural landscape, or education landscape, when you have the ability to do it right, the outcome is that individuals start using those resources more. So, individuals are able to access vaccinations at the local village health clinic because you’ve been able to educate them in a certain way. When we scaled the TB Harega Desh Jeetega program, we were able to work with governments, nonprofits and private sectors to create, kind of, a full-scale effort in education that then allowed individuals in India to then access the resources for tuberculosis, whether that was treatment or whether that was getting X-rays, whatever that may be. So, I think one of the big things when you’re looking at technology and innovation is how are people interacting with the resources across that value chain? And how are you really incentivizing and reorienting the culture around how people use that resource and trust that the information that they’re receiving is correct? We’re in an era of information overload. There’s information coming from all resources, all the way down from your computer to your mobile phone to your tablet. It’s coming in thirty-second increments all the time. So, how do we create that idea that what we’re saying or what we’re sharing or what we’re doing is actually trustworthy? So, I think that’s kind of some of what I was getting in that article.

[00:18:30] Marta: Do you have any specific examples of organizations you have worked with where you can actually see that they not only applied or have started using digital tools, but this mindset also has changed?

[00:18:46] Aasit: Yeah. I mean, obviously, I’m gonna use a DevResults example because that comes to mind first and foremost. But we can see how organizations go from that fragmented data model to using a single source of truth within DevResults and then having teams across their organization, including new teams, teams that don’t typically talk about Meldata, which is really exciting, communications teams, finance teams, the Meld team, leadership; they’re all now coming together and saying, “Oh, this actually makes a lot of sense because it’s all in one place, and they can create the visualizations and the dashboards to change how they’re actually making those decisions.” So, a number of organizations that work with us have shown that over time, they’re creating one-click exports for their quarterly report. That amount of savings in terms of time, energy, and effort allows them to free up discussion time to say, “Okay, look, this is our report. Now what does that mean? How do we change the way we look at that program? What do we need to course correct? What do we need to add? What do we need to get rid of? And why is it working or why isn’t it working?” So, I think that’s really the exciting part, and that’s one of the big reasons why I enjoy monitoring and evaluation. It’s why I’ve done that for my entire career. It really is becoming no longer just an industry reporting requirement, but it’s becoming an industry requirement for information use. So, I think we’re transitioning now from this idea that, oh, I need to create this PDF because it’s required, and then it lives on someone’s desktop, it never gets read to how do I create a system, use a technology that then every week I can get my team to log in to see the information on a dashboard and to make decisions weekly instead of waiting for the end of the quarter.

[00:20:33] Marta: Yeah. And your company, DevResults, is a software platform designed for M&E, as you mentioned. So, how do these ideas that you are just sharing, these challenges that are common, how do they inform your work?

[00:20:51] Aasit: That’s a good question. I think a big part of this question is that ideas shape everything that we build. It’s how we work with our partners. It’s how we increase the functionality of the system. What we like to say at DevResults is that it’s an evolving technology platform. Conversations that we have today with our partners are information that we use to build new functionality and new features to change the way people are using the information, and people are interacting with the application. I think it’s really important that we focus, and this is industry-wide, when you think about it, that you focus on how people are using the data, using the system, and how people are kind of moving away from the traditional ways of M&E and how they want to create better models for that. And I think that’s from the conversations that we have on a day-to-day basis. I think it’s really important that these conversations shape what DevResults looks like today and what it will look like one year, five years, ten years down the road. So, yeah, it’s quite important for us, and that’s the true definition of innovation in my opinion. It’s really working with a number of different people. I’m gonna go back to what I said earlier, but working with the government, working with the nonprofits, working with philanthropy, working with the private sector. It’s not just to say, oh, this is how big our company is. It’s really to say we all have a different way of implementing programs. We all have a different way of working. How do we take what’s best in each of those different categories and create a system that can address the problem and create a technology solution that helps these organizations focus on what they’re really good at, which is program implementation?

[00:22:32] Marta: So, let’s look ahead into the future a little bit. What do you think will be maybe the biggest challenge in the next decade or so for organizations that want to try to use these digital systems to improve their outcomes and to transform systems?

[00:22:50] Aasit: Obviously, technology moves very fast. Technology is moving faster than we’ve ever really seen it move, in my opinion. So, I think one of the biggest challenges over the next few months to years is that we need to build better technology, sure, but we need to build, kind of, institutions that really understand how to use it responsibly, how to use it consistently, and then how to use it at scale. And in order to do a lot of that, we need to create foundational data systems that really create that trust, and where that information is coming from, so then you can build upon that technology platform, you can build upon that information that you have, you can use some of these emerging technologies that have come out at a rapid scale without trust in how the data is generated, how the data is sourced or lives, and how that data will be utilized can really create issues down the road in terms of how do you interact with that information. So, really, what I think is important is to look at the core infrastructure of information and then build a culture around data use, build a leadership model around data use. What I think is important is that we shouldn’t be afraid of information. We shouldn’t be worried about data. We shouldn’t have that feeling that I had when I was on data calls, and I would get anxious, and I would get worried because I didn’t know exactly where that information lived. We wanna get away from that. We want people to be comfortable because we wanna open up that space to really think creatively on the programs that they’re implementing. Again, as we have seen this significant shift in foreign assistance in 2025, it’ll be in 2026 and 2027 and onward that we see how that shift actually is materializing. We need to rebuild, and we need to continue to implement our programs in a way that creates a whole new culture around why it is important to continue to invest in foreign aid and foreign assistance across the board.

[00:24:47] Marta: Are there any trends or developments in this area of digital innovation for M&E that you are particularly excited about?

[00:24:56] Aasit: I’m very excited about the conversation focusing on M&E. I think it’s been very interesting to see that transition, and I know that there are a lot of concerns with how M&E can be used, both from a policy perspective as well as from a reporting perspective. But I think with conversations around accountability, around transparency, around data use, there’s a lot of kind of opportunity to showcase how we can do this right. And I think that that’s what is kind of interesting or exciting is that we have the opportunity to really design a system that builds that trust, and not just for data, across the whole sector. And I think we should be excited, and I totally appreciate, and I’m very aware that I’m coming from this at a point of privilege. 2025 was very difficult for many friends, family, and to those people, I’m a resource, and if they need help, I would love to continue that conversation. But I also have my eyes set on what’s next, and how can we do this right, and what can we do? As a sector, I think that’s one of the things that’s really important to me, is our community, is the people that we work with, the friends that we see, the colleagues that we partner with. We’re a small community. If you take it back at the macro level, the development space, we’ve traveled many places around the world. Marta, you and I have partnered together as companies. We work with a number of different people. I think that’s exciting. That community that we have is something that we need to rely on, and it’s something that we need to continue to foster as we do see changes in the assistance landscape and how we can strengthen it for the future.

[00:26:34] Marta: Agreed. So, as we wrap up the conversation, do you have any specific advice they want to share with our listeners or any specific key takeaways they want them to take from this episode?

[00:26:47] Aasit: Thank you. I think one of the things that I’ve repeated, I think, is building that trust, building a community, having and relying on the resources that we have as well as looking forward to what we can do and to really see how we can shape the sector and how we can work together to really strengthen the culture around foreign assistance, how we can strengthen the use of information. And as a community kind of come together as 2025 ended, and now we’re in 2026. It’s something that we can hopefully look forward to as we see things take shape.

[00:27:21] Marta: Any resources or tools that you want to share?

[00:27:24] Aasit: That’s a good question. I think there are a lot of resources online. LinkedIn is obviously a great resource. There are people’s names I can mention, Nick Martin and Wayne Voda and others who have different tools and different avenues that you can use to really educate on how the sector is moving and where it’s moving, and, of course, just ensuring that you follow this podcast. I’ll give you guys a plug. But, importantly, I think, relying on the community that is international development. We are resources. We are here, and we’re happy to have that discussion. And as we move into 2026, hopefully, there’s more opportunities for all of us to see each other more and to cross-pollinate information together and hopefully find different ways to collaborate and partner to really build on what is needed to reshape the work that we lead.

[00:28:12] Marta: Thank you so much, Aasit. It was a pleasure having you here.

[00:28:15] Aasit: Yeah. No worries. Thank you, Marta, and I sincerely appreciate it. Looking forward to continuing the conversation.

[00:28:21] Marta: Absolutely. That wraps up our conversation with Aasit from DevResults. Today, we discussed the shifting landscape of foreign assistance and the need for data-driven accountability, moving away from legacy loops and fragmented spreadsheets toward a single source of truth, and the importance of building trust and community through reliable M&E systems. You can check the episode notes for links to Aasit’s work, and don’t forget to subscribe.

[00:28:51] Outro: Thanks for listening to Survey and Beyond, the data collection podcast by SurveyCTO. If you want to learn more about how SurveyCTO helps organizations collect reliable, secure, and scalable data anywhere in the world, visit www.surveycto.com. And if you are a fan of Survey and Beyond, consider leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Your feedback helps more listeners discover these conversations and stay connected to the latest thinking in data collection. Don’t forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. On behalf of the entire SurveyCTO team, thanks again for joining us, and we will see you next time.