 |
Participatory evaluation is an approach to program evaluation. It provides for the active involvement of stakeholder in the program: providers, partners, beneficiaries, and any other interested parties. All involved decide how to frame the questions used to evaluate the program, and all decide how to measure outcomes and impact. It is often used in international development. [1] [2]
Participatory evaluation in development, is part of the new wave of grassroots development in which local stakeholders have a more valuable role in the development process. Participatory evaluation methods, in comparison to more mainstream evaluation practices, make space for input from locals who have a specialized and more personal set of knowledge on the community's needs. [3] In this context, the term "locals" can include local governments, local non-governmental organizations, local civil society organizations, and local citizens, among various other actors. In the past, evaluation methods in development have been more quantitative in nature, placing more importance on donor-needs and measurable indicators, but participatory evaluation creates more room for multiple stakeholders to provide much needed input. [3] This strategy can increase the overall accuracy and complexity of monitoring and evaluation in development projects, generating more sustainable outcomes. [3] The key idea is that stakeholders, meaning all groups with both an interest and that are affected by the project, are given an opportunity to provide feedback. [4] The hope is then that the feedback will be implemented in good faith. [4]
Participatory evaluation is an extension of participatory development theory. [3] Participatory evaluation methods have been used at all scales of development projects, including in small-scale businesses as well as large-scale projects. [5] Within these contexts, stakeholders are involved at all levels of the development process, including planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. [6]
Other benefits to applying participatory evaluation to international development include an increase in local ownership, higher empowerment rates for all involved parties, more diverse analysis methods, increase in accuracy to local realities, improvements in impacts of development efforts. [3] Participatory evaluation has also been applied beyond international development aid, and having been involved in humanitarian intervention and aid efforts thus increasing the transparency, accountability, and opportunities to learn. [7]
Depending on contexts, participatory evaluation methodologies can vary. Projects can involve active stakeholder participation at every step of the evaluation process; they can control the evaluation process while keeping stakeholders informed and discussing when needed; or projects can train and prep stakeholders to take on development initiatives by learning throughout the evaluation process. [4]
Within the international development context, participatory evaluation is not without challenges. Since stakeholders are such a crucial element to participatory evaluation, a major challenge to this method is ensuring that the right groups have been included in evaluation methods. [4] Further still, the challenge is identifying what practices and data collection methods work best when collaborating with stakeholders, especially when working with multiple stakeholder groups that have clashing values and objectives. [4] Another challenge to implementing participatory evaluation methods is maintaining the balance in power dynamics between different stakeholders of the development project, including the evaluation team itself. [6] As part of project teams, evaluation teams hold an authoritative position and these evaluators have the potential to hold more power than local stakeholders. [6] Ultimately, this power balance can be reflected by skewed results.
It is a form of community-based participatory research and participatory action research. The evaluation is designed for the people involved in a program as well as its funders, with the hope that results of the evaluation get used rather than sitting on a program funder's shelf.
Tools for monitoring and evaluation in program development, including international development, such as creating a logic model or outcome mapping, can be forms of participatory evaluation if stakeholders are involved.
This method is endorsed by the United Nations [8] [9] [10] and is used in the development programs of many countries including Canada, [11] the US [2] and New Zealand. [12]
Practitioners of participatory evaluation in academia include Clemencia Rodriguez and Barry Checkoway.
In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realisable concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to ascertain the degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such action that has been completed.
Development communication refers to the use of communication to facilitate social development. Development communication engages stakeholders and policy makers, establishes conducive environments, assesses risks and opportunities and promotes information exchange to create positive social change via sustainable development. Development communication techniques include information dissemination and education, behavior change, social marketing, social mobilization, media advocacy, communication for social change, and community participation.
Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency.
Policy analysis or public policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement the goals of laws and elected officials. People who regularly use policy analysis skills and techniques on the job, particularly those who use it as a major part of their job duties are generally known by the title Policy Analyst. The process is also used in the administration of large organizations with complex policies. It has been defined as the process of "determining which of various policies will achieve a given set of goals in light of the relations between the policies and the goals."
Participatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable. Participatory design is an approach which is focused on processes and procedures of design and is not a design style. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g. software design, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, product design, sustainability, graphic design, planning, and health services development as a way of creating environments that are more responsive and appropriate to their inhabitants' and users' cultural, emotional, spiritual and practical needs. It is also one approach to placemaking.
The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens, and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities.
Social return on investment (SROI) is a principles-based method for measuring extra-financial value. It can be used by any entity to evaluate impact on stakeholders, identify ways to improve performance, and enhance the performance of investments.
Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.
Public participation, also known as citizen participation or patient and public involvement, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder engagement.
Participatory GIS (PGIS) or public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) is a participatory approach to spatial planning and spatial information and communications management.
Participatory video(PV) is a form of participatory media in which a group or community creates their own film. The idea behind this is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories. It is therefore primarily about process, though high quality and accessible films (products) can be created using these methods if that is a desired outcome. This process can be very empowering, enabling a group or community to take their own action to solve their own problems, and also to communicate their needs and ideas to decision-makers and/or other groups and communities. As such, PV can be a highly effective tool to engage and mobilise marginalised people, and to help them to implement their own forms of sustainable development based on local needs.
Participatory planning is an urban planning paradigm that emphasizes involving the entire community in the community planning process. Participatory planning emerged in response to the centralized and rationalistic approaches that defined early urban planning work.
The Governance and Anti-Corruption Country Diagnostics is a survey tool, which uses information gathered from in-depth, country-specific surveys of households, businesses, and public officials about institutional vulnerabilities. The tool is used by the World Bank and partner governments to measure and evaluate critical governance challenges within the public sector.
Participatory impact pathways analysis (PIPA) is a project management approach in which the participants in a project, including project staff, key stakeholders, and the ultimate beneficiaries, together co-construct their program theory.
Impact evaluation assesses the changes that can be attributed to a particular intervention, such as a project, program or policy, both the intended ones, as well as ideally the unintended ones. In contrast to outcome monitoring, which examines whether targets have been achieved, impact evaluation is structured to answer the question: how would outcomes such as participants' well-being have changed if the intervention had not been undertaken? This involves counterfactual analysis, that is, "a comparison between what actually happened and what would have happened in the absence of the intervention." Impact evaluations seek to answer cause-and-effect questions. In other words, they look for the changes in outcome that are directly attributable to a program.
Participatory development (PD) seeks to engage local populations in development projects. Participatory development has taken a variety of forms since it emerged in the 1970s, when it was introduced as an important part of the "basic needs approach" to development. Most manifestations of public participation in development seek "to give the poor a part in initiatives designed for their benefit" in the hopes that development projects will be more sustainable and successful if local populations are engaged in the development process. PD has become an increasingly accepted method of development practice and is employed by a variety of organizations. It is often presented as an alternative to mainstream "top-down" development. There is some question about the proper definition of PD as it varies depending on the perspective applied. Two perspectives that can define PD are the "Social Movement Perspective" and the "Institutional Perspective":
Theory of Change (ToC) is a methodology or a criterion for planning, participation, adaptive management, and evaluation that is used in companies, philanthropy, not-for-profit, international development, research, and government sectors to promote social change. Theory of Change defines long-term goals and then maps backward to identify necessary preconditions.
Empowerment evaluation (EE) is an evaluation approach designed to help communities monitor and evaluate their own performance. It is used in comprehensive community initiatives as well as small-scale settings and is designed to help groups accomplish their goals. According to David Fetterman, "Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self-determination". An expanded definition is: "Empowerment evaluation is an evaluation approach that aims to increase the likelihood that programs will achieve results by increasing the capacity of program stakeholders to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs."
Community-based program design is a social method for designing programs that enables social service providers, organizers, designers and evaluators to serve specific communities in their own environment. This program design method depends on the participatory approach of community development often associated with community-based social work, and is often employed by community organizations. From this approach, program designers assess the needs and resources existing within a community, and, involving community stakeholders in the process, attempt to create a sustainable and equitable solution to address the community's needs.
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is a combined term for the processes set up by organizations such as companies, government agencies, international organisations and NGOs, with the goal of improving their management of outputs, outcomes and impact. Monitoring includes the continuous assessment of programmes based on early detailed information on the progress or delay of the ongoing assessed activities. Evaluation involves the examination of the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and impact of activities in the light of specified objectives.
| Authority control: National |
|---|
