Surveys are quite important in setting up M&E systems, monitoring the performance of programmes or projects and assessing higher level outcomes or impact. For instance, baseline data is used to set appropriate and achievable objectives and targets for a project, and data collected in M&E systems are compared with the baseline data to determine if a programme or project is meeting its specified targets. 

In piloting, emphasis has to be made on which questions to keep and which questions to be asked first, whether help text should be added, and how the respondents reacted, how interesting the survey was etc