Sometimes I can't believe how useless so many development reports are.

Seriously.

Monitoring reports are NOT just about numbers. They're not about ticking boxes.

We did this. We did that.

So what?

I love metaphors, and here's one.

Reporting is a house of cards.

At the top we have our evaluation. This is where we reflect on EVERYTHING. The project's over, and it's time to hand over to the community, pack up and go home and say 'job done'.

But how do we know that we succeeded?

And how do we even define success?

Writing reports - we seem to do a lot of it.

And no-one can deny it matters - tracking outputs and progress towards higher-level results, helping management make decisions that steer projects, and of, course, accountability to our donors and other stakeholders - yes, reports do matter.

In over 20 years training people to write better, I know having an understanding of Professional Writing and following a writing process helps a great deal.

But I've Also Seen Many Humanitarian Workers - Managers Included - Don't Seem To Have A Logical Approach To Reporting.

As humanitarian and community development workers, we seem to do an awful lot of writing - proposals, field reports, evaluations, case studies ... reporting to donors and stakeholders on project results.

Of course, reporting is an important part of any MELS / accountability system. And while for many of us collecting and analysing the data isn't such an issue, communicating is - especially if English isn't our first language.

And are we supposed to write like those fancy UN reports we see when we are telling stories from the field?

And What Is Professional Writing Anyway?