Resources

This article begins with a brief discussion of the links between the concepts of participation and social exclusion. Brief histories of three government programmes in the United States which have attempted to use participation to address poverty and social exclusion are then given. Themes emerging from these histories are outlined and their possible relevance for the South, as participation is increasingly used as an institutonalised strategy for addressing poverty.

Course notes for a workshop, this paper examines the concepts of monitoring, evaluation and participation and identifies the main components of the process. Identifying stakeholders and indicators and personal attitudes and behaviour are initial starting points, followed by sections on defining objectives of PM&E, checking the relevance of the project to the stakeholders, planning new activities, reporting findings and negotiating change. The notes end with some techiques and tools for consultation.

The report is a summary of the data gathered and analyzed by citizens learning teams and their supporters. The teams worked to design and implement a participatory evaluation process to track local progress of a federal program to relieve severe distress in rural and urban areas. The report focuses on lessons learned about the early stages of the program and the use of community-based monitoring and evaluation as a tool for strengthening community development.

This article describes step by step the evaluation process used to examine the impact of three years of a WN project. The process involved villagers, village and inter-village leaders, technical WN stafff and external resource people. Villagers were involved in deciding the terms of reference, establishing the village sample using ranking, collection of data and analysis. Collection of data was carried out using both qualitative and quantitative methods, with an emphasis on triangulation of the data.

This article describes the way in which the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) have introduced a participatory monitoring and evaluation process into their work that is closely linked to planning. Not only were a wide scope of participatory methods found to be necessary but also an organisational commitment to 'participation' and the creation of a framework to encourage it.