Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E)

Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation is a large and rapidly growing field. It can be defined as an "approach which involves local people, development agencies, and policy makers deciding together how progress should be measured, and results acted upon" (Guijt and Gaventa). Some of its core principles are:

- participation in the design of the process, and in analysis
- negotiation on indicators, methods, use of information and subsequent action
- learning for subsequent improvement
- flexibility of the process

In practice, many of the visual techniques associated with PRA can be used fruitfully in PM&E.

Some of the major issues for PM&E are:

- designing a sustainable process
- reconciling different standards of the credibility of information
- scaling-up the use of PM&E into large organisations and programmes.

Key References

Guijt, I and Gaventa, J. 1998. Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation: Learning From Change. IDS Policy Briefing Issue 12, Brighton, IDS. http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/briefs/brief12.html

IIED, 1998. PLA Notes 31: Special Issue on Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation London, IIED.

Uphoff, N. A. 1989. Field Methodology for Participatory Self-Evaluation of People's Participation Programme (PPP) Group and Inter-group Association Performance People's Participation, FAO SD Dimensions, Rome, FAO. http://www.fao.org/sd/ppdirect/ppre0059.htm

> > [Livestock & Environment Toolbox Home]