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The characterisation of the existing state of M&E in agricultural interventions by those participating in the ALINe consultation survey (Lindstrom 2009; Haddad et al. 2010) may seem familiar to many working in other areas: a ‘compliance culture’, expressed in a preoccupation with accountability to donors rather than to intended beneficiaries and other stakeholders; failure to fully integrate M&E into intervention planning and implementation processes; limited capacity among those responsible for M&E; limited understanding of its potential value among other staff (M&E primarily seen as an additional burden); and insufficient resources to deliver findings of an appropriate quality. These are common complaints, with underlying causes linked to deeply entrenched attitudes that either attach limited importance to accountability and transparency or are reluctant to allocate the often substantial resources required to achieve them. To some extent they probably also reflect a failure on the part of the evaluation community, either in terms of providing convincing evidence of the value of their activities or in finding effective methods to promote them.