This toolkit surveys some of the instruments available for assessing media development. It sets out advice around clarifying the purpose and focus of assessment, and how this impacts upon the issues around choosing, creating and using the best tools for assessing some aspect of the media landscape. It tests existing tools providing practical advice on assessment and problems  of data availability, collection and analysis. It provides examples of different approaches to monitoring impact of media development.

The outlined evaluation and assessment approach is meant to be flexible and responsive – it must be able to work when large amounts of data are readily available or when such data is scarce. It must work in a print-dominant media sector or one where community radio prevails. It must be scaled from an in-depth assessment of the entire sector, to an assessment of only one area of the sector. The outline is meant to be a first step towards development of a toolkit that will provide practical advice on finding data and surrogate data sources, examining and understanding linkages between the components of a media sector, and complementing existing research with additional on-the-ground and/or desk research.