To benchmark is to compare performance against a standard. As part of an effort to improve the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the policy cycle, benchmarking can be useful in three ways. First, benchmarking can help place an outcome in the next context. Was the achievement good, bad, or indifferent? Second, benchmarking can help assess the reasonableness of targets that may be set. Third, benchmarking can help identify specific regions or subgroups that are exceptionally good or poor results hint at what factors drive performance, it can be hard to extract information about potential determinants. Therefore, the process of analyzing performance at the extremes can make it easier to extract information and to introduce more feedback into the policy cycle.