Learning to change by learning from change: going to scale with participatory monitoring and evaluation

Participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) is increasingly going beyond the local community and project level. It is being used by institutions that operate at a larger scale, both geographically and in terms of programme scope. As it is being mainstreamed by government, NGOs, donors or research agencies, PM&E highlights the complexity of social and power relationships amongst multiple stakeholders. Drawing on case studies and other experiences, this paper briefly explores some of the social and political dimensions of PM&E, especially in relation to scaling-up. It also addresses some of the issues and challenges of applying PM&E to encourage greater accountability of larger institutions, especially government. The paper examines how PM&E can be used for institutional learning, and how institutional change is critical for the scaling up of PM&E. Some of the enabling factors that are necessary for using PM&E on a larger scale are identified. Conclusions are drawn about the relationship of PM&E to the broader question of learning from change and learning to change.