Participatory Monitoring And Evaluation Focus On People’s Participation

IN RECENT years, people’s participation in development is receiving increasing recognition in a wide range of community development programmes. The government’s development line agencies, NGOs, training organisations are particularly raising the issue of people’s participation not only in planning and implementation, but also in monitoring and evaluation of the development activities. In this regard, social mobilisation is considered as key to socio-economic development.

Since the very beginning of development planning, the concept of monitoring and evaluation therefore emerged as an important priority to track on whether activities are implemented as planned and set objectives are met. This is crucial part of project management as it gives better insights on the status of implementation aspects of development programmes.

It is a matter of real concern that development projects-be that of government or the NGOs owned-are largely meant to uplift the socio-economic development of the communities, especially poor, marginalised and socially disadvantaged groups in the society. Their participation counts much in development initiatives not only to improve their livelihoods but also to ensure continuity and sustainability of the programmes.

Participatory monitoring is the systematic recording and periodic analysis of information that has been chosen and recorded by insiders with the help of outsiders. The key purpose of such monitoring is to provide information during the life of the project, so that adjustments can be made as necessary.

More importantly, as all know that participatory monitoring and evaluation (PME) is an opportunity for both the outsiders and insiders to reflect on the past in order to make decisions—even though outsiders facilitate the evaluation process with active participation of local people. In fact, the PME is a continuous process where people have their own indigenous criteria to asses the impacts. And hence the process is participatory, community-led and demand driven.

Participatory assessment, monitoring and evaluation’s focus on the community assures that community and field staff benefit by identifying, gathering and analysing information. However, most often valid, reliable and vitally important data and results are not used. This not only means that it is definitely a waste of resources but also that important decisions are made without adequate information.

The benefits of PME are enormous as it gives an ongoing picture that allows the community not only to determine whether activities are progressing as planned but also show whether activities are leading to the desired objectives. This provides an important opportunity for continuous feedback throughout the project life to yield quality outputs.

It is very interesting to note that the conventional approach of monitoring and evaluation has major shift towards participatory process. The only agenda towards the participatory approach in monitoring and evaluation is to ensure people’s participation in decision making process so that development efforts are more effective to yield significant impacts.

The PME occurs in many diverse forms. And this is, more importantly, a step-wise approach where people freely articulate their own assessment with their own criteria. The indigenous knowledge receives great value—whereby local perceptions on needs and priorities are better reflected and addressed. This is, in fact, an empowering process where people’s choices and determinations are better enhanced.

The PME is largely based on the philosophy of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA). The PLA is thus a family of approaches and methods to enable local people to present, share and analyse their knowledge and perceptions of life and conditions to plan and act. The methodologies in PME are therefore participatory, flexible, and exploratory where gender equality and equity are systematically addressed.

Particularly, national and international I/NGOs working in the field of community development at the grass roots have been focusing on PME as an effective means of measuring change—and the impacts in livelihoods of the majority of the rural poor who are most socially disadvantaged and marginalised in the society.

Recognising such a strength of the PME, community development organisations are emphasing on human resource development on participatory methodologies on planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of project activities. Most common initiatives are training, advocacy and participatory workshops to exchange ideas and experiences in diverse field of community development.

The International Workshop on PME held in Delhi, India this year in September is the major landmark to share regional experience on various methods and applications on PME that are directly related to rural planning. Like those of other countries, participation from organisations like Habitat for Humanity, Institute of Cultural Affairs and Nepal Participatory Action Network (NEPAN) shared Nepal’s experience in the area of PME and upcoming plans of PME in their respective organisations.

Of central importance to note here is that the NEPAN is the only national level network to advocate and promote the participatory development process. The national co-ordinator of NEPAN, Chet Nath Kanel opines that there are emerging needs of wider applications of the PME in NGOs’ community development programmes." This year we are planning for the capacity building workshops on the PME to the local NGOs." says Kanel, adding further that there are growing demands of such training from diverse fields of community development.

It was actually an important opportunity to learn on methodological issues in participatory process. As a multi-disciplinary team of the participants, the experiences ranged from natural resource management like agriculture and forestry to community health programme. The initial development of PME is still gaining momentum for wider applications as a few oragnisations are only internalising the approach.

After all, integrated development efforts should bring positive changes in the lives of people. Thus it is very essential to develop strategies to advocate government agencies and civil society on the rational of participatory planning and hence institutionalise the PME process for desired impact. Ultimately, the purpose of participatory development approach is to enlarge people’s choices for sustainable development.

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