About · MERLx

About MERLx the next-generation MERL practice.

AI-augmented MERL infrastructure for global development and humanitarian aid programmes — anchored locally through in-country partners.

Why MERLx exists

The system is under pressure, and most MERL was not built for it.

Humanitarian and development systems are under unprecedented pressure. Donors are being asked to deliver more impact, more accountability, and more localisation — with less money, more political scrutiny, and rapidly compounding risks. Budgets are tightening just as climate shocks, protracted crises, and geopolitical fragmentation intensify.

In that context, Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning is both critical and increasingly misaligned with the challenge. Evaluations arrive too late to inform adaptive management. Learning products are stored, not used, and rarely feed portfolio-level decisions. Third-Party Monitoring can feel like compliance surveillance, rather than a tool for joint problem-solving. Local researchers and MERL partners shoulder frontline risk but retain little ownership over data, tools, or long-term value. Emerging AI tools are mostly black-box products — hard to trust, hard to explain, and rarely designed with fragile contexts in mind.

The result is a widening gap between what decision-makers need — timely, conflict-sensitive, trusted evidence — and what current MERL systems can structurally deliver.

The MERLx response

AI-augmented, locally anchored MERL.

MERLx is being built as an AI-augmented, locally anchored MERL practice for donors, multilaterals, INGOs and implementers who want to re-architect evidence infrastructure around four moves: real-time analysis and compound-risk insight, locally anchored delivery, conflict-sensitive methodology, and operational readiness rather than concept notes.

We combine analytical infrastructure — the Optics Suite: IRIS, Aperture, PRISM, ToC Tester, OASIS, ECHO — with locally anchored research and conflict-sensitive methodology. AI is an amplifier for the analysts, evaluators and programme staff who already do this work. It does not replace their judgement. AI-augmented workflows can reduce qualitative synthesis time by up to 60–75%, freeing expert time for interpretation and dialogue rather than manual coding.

Localisation is not a translation step at the end. It is built into the language stack, the infrastructure choices, and the governance of every engagement. We design tools so the people closest to the work can run them, and we anchor delivery locally through partner cooperatives who own the analysis under their own governance, in their own languages. Findings are owned by the country team. Headquarters does not rewrite them.

What we hold to

Field first. Evidence over abstraction. Open. Responsible.

Field first, not lab first. Programme reality sets the architecture. Low bandwidth, limited infrastructure, non-specialist users, noisy data, power that cuts out. Every tool has to work for a programme officer on a modest laptop, or an analyst at a shared country-office desk behind a captive portal. We design for sustained programme use, not conference demos.

Evidence over abstraction. Every analytical output is auditable. Classifiers show which features drove the call. Narrative reports cite the indicators behind them. ToC Tester critique cites its evidence. We support human judgement; we don't replace it.

Open and interoperable. Open data standards, open satellite archives (Sentinel, Landsat, MODIS via Copernicus and Planetary Computer), open-source analytical libraries and standard APIs. Clients own their data and their instance. Nothing in our core stack is licence-locked.

Responsible by default. Every engagement runs a data-protection impact assessment at inception. We align to IASC operational guidance on data responsibility, and to OECD-DAC conflict-sensitivity and Core Humanitarian Standard principles. Informed consent, distress-referral and takedown protocols are documented per deployment. Classifier outputs affecting named individuals pass a human-in-the-loop review before release. PII redaction is on by default. Data residency and retention are set by the client.

Origins

A practice running since 2017, now under MERLx, S.L.

MERLx, S.L. is a Spain-based MERL consultancy established in 2026 to formalise an advisory practice that previously operated under the Slipström name. Same principal, same methodology, same partner relationships — under a clearer legal form.

  1. 2017DK · enkeltmandsvirksomhed

    Slipström practice begins in Denmark

    Independent advisory work begins in Copenhagen as a Danish enkeltmandsvirksomhed under the Slipström name. The early years build the core practice: MERL, conflict analysis, research, and evidence-based advisory for international development and humanitarian partners.

  2. 2021ES · autónoma · Barcelona

    Practice relocates to Spain

    The principal consultant moves to Spain and registers as an autónoma in Barcelona, continuing under the Slipström name. A growing portfolio across East Africa and the Middle East shapes the practice toward conflict-sensitive MERL and data-enabled evaluation.

  3. 2024NileX · Nairobi

    NileX founded as a local-anchor node

    The network-building logic crystallizes with the creation of NileX, an independent MERL and data-analytic firm in Nairobi. NileX is designed as a local-anchor node to strengthen conflict-sensitive programme evaluation, research, and early-warning systems across the region.

  4. 2026NileX · Sudan

    NileX expands into Sudan

    The network expands with the establishment of NileX in Sudan, deepening the practice’s presence in fragile-state contexts and reinforcing capacity for locally anchored, conflict-informed MERL operations across the Nile-region corridor.

  5. 2026MERLx, S.L. · Spain

    First formal node in the network

    The practice is formalized through the incorporation of MERLx, S.L. in Spain — a limited-liability legal form that carries forward the eight-year track record built under the Slipström name. Same principal, same methodology, same partner relationships. From here on the practice runs as MERLx, S.L., serving as the strategic hub and the first formal node in a broader network with NileX (Nairobi and Sudan).