Resources

The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme supports soil and water conservation work on private land, a priority identified by villagers, as part of a watershed management project. Villagers suggested that monitoring should look at: erosion controlled; land reclaimed; moisture retention in soil (as inferred from crop growth); and productivity and income generation. The article goes through the process of participatory impact monitoring, illustrated by real results. The benefits of such monitoring are listed, most of them related to increased farmer understanding of processes and control over further experimentation.

In 1994 an experiment on participatory monitoring was carried out with CCDBÆs PPRDP programme. CCDB is a medium sized Bangladeshi NGO that provides development assistance primarily geared towards women. The purpose of the experiment was to explore more innovative approaches to project monitoring away from more conventional approaches that emphasise the use of indicators. The experiment hoped to establish a more æiteratedÆ process or evolutionary approach to project evaluation. The approach sought to highlight differing perspectives and interpretation of project developments in order to learn from their experiences. Monitoring was undertaken by members of the CCDB programme, field level project staff, senior staff at the head office, and CCDB donors. Each of these groups were asked to identify and select on a monthly basis the most æsignificantÆ impacts or changes experienced under the programme and explain the basis of their selections; however, the structure of participation followed a hierarchical process of selection whereby the choices of participants were forwarded to higher levels of staff and finally to CCDB donors. In effect, the number of identified impacts eventually narrowed at each level of the organisational hierarchy. The first section of the paper outlines the methodology following a series of steps and then describes the state of the experimental monitoring system as of March 1995. It is then contrasted with other conventional approaches to monitoring. While the experimental monitoring system continues to be operational and CCDB staff have identified a wider range of objectives for the monitoring system, several weaknesses of the system are identified. Most significant among these is the tendency at all levels of staff to focus primarily on describing the æsignificantÆ project impacts, with less emphasis on elaborating their criteria for selecting those impacts. Also, project staff tended to report and select mostly positive impacts of the programmes, suggesting that the system biased against more critical reporting of events.

This lengthy and detailed document represents a summarised report of the second Internal Evaluation of an ongoing Fourth phase implementation of the above named project in Bangladesh. The objective of this evaluation was both to assess the progress
of the project and to test some new methodological approaches that had been applied in order to further strengthen grassroots participation. The methods utilised were mostly PRA and they were applied at the beneficiary level. The emphasis was laid on the potentials of the participants to evaluate the present situation and outline realistic future options. The document is split into six major chapters which in turn outline the Terms of Reference, a discussion of the principles of PRA and a short introduction to the methods applied. Chapter three presents the executive summary which leads to a more extensive discussion of the findings in Chapter four. The observers comments and recommendations are used to draw some conclusions applicable for the on-going fourth phase implementation and for the planning of a fifth phase. The last chapter includes some appendices of the basic orientation and
results from the evaluation. A bibliography is added at the back.

This is a resource book designed primarily for development workers working within the field of the rural poor. It describes a range of first-hand experiences with participatory approaches in the context of projects funded by The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and governments in Asia and the Pacific. The book is divided into a number of sections. Part One examines poverty and participation and explains why the poor should be targeted and in what ways this is possible. Part Two describes in detail the actual participatory approaches. Part three concentrates on participation in the project planning and implementation stage. Part Four assesses the monitoring impact and Part Five examines issues in participation with regards to institutions, partnerships and governance.