Participatory evaluation with pastoralists in Sudan

The Red Seas Hills Programme (RSHP) team began working with Village Development Committees (VDC's) in the costal zone of Sudan in 1989. The VDC's plan, implement, and monitor a range of projects prioritised by each community. This article presents the process of a participatory mid-term evaluation by the team, external reviewers and the Beja communities. The articles describes these methods and looks at how the communities perceived the benefits of certain projects and to what wealth class. Each village evaluation culminated in a feedback workshop. The VDU's also assessed their own organisational capacities and the RSHP carried out their own assessment of the evaluation to contribute to its own learning and to that of the villagers with whom it worked. The article concludes by assessing the impact of the participatory evaluation and identifies PM & E as playing a key role in improving the performance of community organisations in managing development.