Participatory tools for the evaluation of training interventions

The World Bank-funded Uttar Pradesh Diversified Agriculture Support project (UPDASP) in India is supporting a Farming System Approach (FSA) in 32 districts of the state of Uttar Pradesh, with the major emphasis on natural resources management, employment generation, value addition and marketing. Training is an important part of the project for both farmers and field staff. This article shares experience gained during a participatory evaluation of the training provided under the project, and focuses particularly on describing the participatory tools specifically developed for the evaluation of this training rather than the outcomes. These tools include Card Sorting, Johari's window, the Learning Matrix, the Fishbone, Tree Mapping and Ranking. It concludes with lessons learnt and emphasises that the tools and techniques used in the evaluation made it clear to participants how effective participatory methodologies are, especially in the context of monitoring and evaluation.