A Monad is a fundamental concept in functional programming, particularly in languages like Haskell. It provides a way to structure computations and manage side effects, allowing developers to write cleaner and more maintainable code. Monads encapsulate values and define how to apply functions to these values while handling context, such as state or failure. In essence, a Monad consists of three main components: a type constructor, a unit function (often called `return`), and a bind function (commonly represented as `>>=`). These components work together to enable chaining operations in a consistent manner, making it easier to work with complex data flows and asynchronous programming.