The concept of participation is gaining importance in development and all projects, programmes and policies are expected to employ participatory approaches in assessing needs, during implementation stages as well as when conducting monitoring and evaluations. This course on participatory M&E approaches is designed to recognize and include communities as important stakeholders in data collection and evaluation. It expands the notion of accountability to answer not only whether organizations are fulfilling the terms of the funding they receive, but also whether they are fulfilling the needs and goals of the communities they serve. PM&E requires including community voices in monitoring and evaluation, and building the capacity of community members to become active partners in this process.

Target Participants

This course is designed for researchers, project staff, development practitioners, managers and decision makers who are responsible for M&E and who want to implement participatory approaches in their work.

What you will learn

By the end of the course the learner should be able to:

• Understand PM&E process
• Develop PM&E results levels
• Define indicators for participatory monitoring and evaluation
• Develop logical framework approach in PM&E
• Carryout participatory M&E planning
• Understand data collection for PM&E
• Develop tools and techniques for rural appraisal in PM&E
• Carryout data analysis in PM&E
• Implement participatory impact assessment

Course duration

5 days

Course Outline

Introduction to Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation (PME) 

• Definition of Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation
• Purpose and benefits of Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation
• Principles of Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation
• The relevance of Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation
• Challenges in using participatory approaches

PM&E Process

• Planning the PM&E process and determining objectives and indicators
• Data collection methods and tools
• Data analyzing

Developing PM&E Results Levels

• M&E results chain
• Components of results chain
• Linking the result levels

Indicators for Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation

• What are indicators
• Types of indicators
• Characteristics of good indicators
• Participatory process of indicator definition

Logical Framework Approach in PM&E

• LFA – analysis and planning phase
• Designing of logframe
• Risk rating in logframe
• Horizontal and vertical logic in logframe
• Using logframe to create schedules: activity and budget schedules

Participatory M&E Planning

• Components of PM&E plan
• Developing PM&E plans
• Implementing PM&E plans

Participatory Project design

• Generating objectives for project planning
• Developing an action plan for implementation
• Group dynamics of participatory decision making

Data collection for PM&E

• Participatory information gathering tools and methods
• Quantitative and qualitative data
• Triangulating data collection sources and methods
• Preparing data collection methods/tools

Tools and Techniques for PME

• Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools
• Beneficiary assessment
• Visual self-evaluation tools
• Testimonials
• Photographing the evidence
• Community records and indicators

Participatory Action Research

• Tools for PAR
• Importance of PAR
• Steps in carrying out PAR

Data Analysis in PM&E

• Introduction to data analysis in PM&E
• Using SPSS/Stata in quantitative data management and analysis for PM&E
• Descriptive and inferential analysis
• Participatory dissemination of the findings

Participatory Evaluation

• Evaluation questions
• Evaluation design
• Participatory data collection
• Evaluation data analysis
• Evaluation findings dissemination and action planning

Participatory Impact Assessment

• What is participatory impact assessment
• Process of PIA
• Community defined indicators in PIA
• Participatory tools and methods in PIA
• Project attribution

Reporting in PM&E

• Reporting on progress toward outcomes to stakeholders and participatory dissemination.
• Communication activities to partners and stakeholders
• Lessons learned
• Key activities and results that need planning
• Using the information for the action-learning process and reporting