Three international conservation organisations (Fauna & Flora International, the African Wildlife Foundation and Birdlife International) organised a workshop to explore the challenges and solutions to monitoring and evaluating socio-economic/livelihoods impacts in conservation programs. With financial support from Swedbio, a two day workshop was held on 18th - 19th July 2007 in Cambridge, UK, at which representatives from a range of conservation and development organisations and academia gathered to share experiences of the application of socio-economic/livelihoods M&E. Focused around a series of presentations and discussion sessions, the goal of the workshop was to identify pragmatic recommendations and guidelines for conservation practitioners, that balance technical rigour with field realities. Some 40 delegates spanning 20 nationalities participated in the workshop. These included conservation field practitioners from 14 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as those working in organisational headquarters on organisation-wide processes for M&E, reporting and lesson-learning. The involvement of selected representatives from the development sector, which has a longer history and experience of using and developing socio-economic/livelihoods M&E tools and processes, provided a valuable counterpoint to the discussion. The first day focused on comparing field level M&E tools and frameworks, whilst the second day focused on organisational process for M&E and reporting, and the challenges of reconciling field level, organisational and donor information requirements in a unified M&E system. Both days included presentations from conservation and development practitioners, and breakout discussion groups to explore key issues.