Illustrative: "% of farmer groups formally registered" is correctly left non-additive across partners; "farmers reached" is correctly additive.
Best Practices
Writing indicators that hold up
A good indicator survives a hard question about what it actually measures. A few habits make that easier from the start.
Step 1 · Learn
Understand the concept
Name the unit explicitly ("households," not "reach"), decide up front whether it is cumulative or reset each period, and set the disaggregation you will actually need — adding it retroactively means historical periods were never captured that way.
Decide additive vs non-additive roll-up before partners start reporting against it: a percentage indicator summed across partners produces a number nobody can defend.
From concept to your own project
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Best Practices