Case study of a participatory evaluation of the Canada -Haiti Humanitarian Alliance Fund which was used to support the development and post-disaster work of thirty seven local NGOs and civil society groups. Over a one month period twenty eight participants drawn from projects and communities were trained in participatory evaluation methods and approaches and 15 projects in various sectors were evaluated.
The methods used to involve stakeholders in all phases of the evaluation from pre-planning and training to implementation are described. Based on this experience the authors argue that some of the common arguments used against the use of participatory evaluation do not hold. Not only were the participatory evaluations carried out successfully on projects that were not initially designed in a participatory manner but they were also found to be comparable to more traditional evaluations in terms of cost. Moreover, project participants evaluated the projects in an objective fashion and 'experts' were found unnecessary.
Publication year:
1998
Pages:
23p.