"If you want the questions and the answers, sit and talk with us
for a while."
Masihi, a villager in Um Dekaka, Sudan.
The evolution of community forestry over the past decades has taken place in a number of progressive stages. Each stage has built on the cumulative knowledge and lessons of the past.
In the first stage, outsiders gathered as much information as they could about communities, in order to provide the best solutions that were available. The monitoring and evaluation was done by outsiders, and focused mainly on whether the solutions had worked or not. While there were many successes, there were difficulties in determining whether the solutions addressed the real needs of the communties.
In the next stage, outsiders were encouraged to listen to local people. Participant observation and other social science methods were used so that outsiders could better understand what it was the communities percieved as their needs and priorities. Based on this information, solutions were sought. The monitoring and evaluation throughout this stage was done mainly by outsiders, but local perceptions were included.
Throughout this stage, many lessons were learned, and with these lessons came the realization that people, in many instances, understood and could articulate their needs and a range of solutions. it was also found that people had a wealth of indigenous knowledge and skills that could be combined with outsider's knowledge to accomplish together what neither could do alone.
We are now entering a new stage in Community Forestry, the stage in which local (insider) knowledge is combined with outsider knowledge. Participatory Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation (PANE) offers a new way of thinking about assessment, monitoring and evaluation. It is based on the premise that it is the communities which are, 'ultimately, the final evaluators of project success or failure. Sustainability depends, to a large part, on communities' ability to analyse, judge, and explain to others the value of various options. Their analytical skills should thus be supported and/or strengthened in order for them to ask and answer their own questions. Their communicative skills can be improved so that they can present their evaluations in terms extensionists, research centres, and policy makers can understand.
PAME blends an approach, techniques and tools to assist communities in assessing, monitoring and evaluating the value of the project to themselves. An important spin-off benefit to this is that the very presence and practice of PAME contributes to the learning experiences of both the project staff and community members, and assists in achieving the development objectives of self-help and sustainability.
This document is directed to community forestry projects, where management decisions and project activity benefits are retained by the community (either individually or communally). Community forestry might involve any, many, or all of the following components:
"COMMUNITY FORESTRY CAN BE;"
The community can be in any country, and encompass any social, economic or cultural group. What may be common to all communities is that they want and need either inputs, resources or a new perspective in order to change, improve, manage, rehabilitate, or more usefully and equitably process the forest and tree resources around them.
PAME works well with projects, programmes or communities that have commitments to:
SUSTAINABILITY
SELF HELP
PARTICIPATION
If these kinds of commitments have not been articulated by the community forestry project, introducing PAME may be a way of promoting these commitments. It is never too late for a promising idea!
PAME can have benefits for both "insiders" and "outsiders". Both require information to guide them in making wise decisions to ensure that their activities are successful. Both require information that is:
TIMELY RELEVANT UNDERSTANDABLE |
ACCURATE USEABLE COST-EFFECTIVE |
For the "outsiders" some of the benefits of PAME are: they can learn from communities what their needs are, and how to better serve these needs; they can understand the constraints faced by communities in satisfying their needs; they can use PAME as an entry point to a non-participatory project and perhaps establish the basis and justification for future participation; they can receive information from communities if communities choose to share it; they can discover relevant research questions inspired by communities' questions; they can see whether project objectives address the real needs and priorities of communities; and they can have a window for evaluating participation.
FROM EXPERIENCE Field staff at a PAME workshop in Kenya were asked at the beginning of the workshop to identify the strengths and weaknesses of "insiders" and "outsiders" in project evaluation. | ||
Strengths |
Weaknesses | |
"Insiders" |
*Evaluate their own objectives *responsive decisions *intuitive analytical skills *aware of community dynamics *instant feedback to community |
*Poor feedback to outsiders *subjective *have a stake in decisions made *peer pressure experienced *afraid to challenge power |
"Outsiders" |
*have extra time *can represent poorer factions of community *not afraid to speak up |
*poor feedback to outsiders *only outsider objectives/values *determine terms of measurement *have no real stake in community |
The group decided that, if blended, the two perspectives could be complementary, resulting in more meaningful monitoring and evaluation. Source: Agroforestry Monitoring and Evaluation Workshop, Kenya (1988) |
For the "insiders" some of the benefits of PAME are: they can know clearly what the project offers; they can have the opportunity to learn different kinds of analytical skills in their process of problem identification/analysis and information gathering; they can get new perspectives on old problems; they can learn new ways to judge whether their efforts are worthwhile enough to continue; they can learn new ways to articulate their needs to outsiders and to better understand outsider's information; and they can activate, control and, in effect, "own" the information.
Both "insiders" and "outsiders" benefit from PAME, the goals of sustainability and self-help are encouraged, and as a result, the chance for a long-term positive impact is increased. In addition, projects are more likely to be successful because relevant, useful information is available to facilitate decision making and mediate between conflicting goals and priorities.
The primary focus of PAME is on the information needs of the communities, while the secondary focus is on the information needs of the project. This prioritization ensures that people are not merely collecting information that the outsiders need to monitor and evaluate. It also ensures that the information is relevant to the development problem.
In order to guarantee this focus, it is best that field staff have, or actively seek, the support and understanding of those above them in the project hierarchy: the project and programme management; the national government; and the donors.
The kinds of information received directly from communities is valid, legitimate, and important. It gives a rich understanding, reflects the community reality, and is an important contribution to higher level decision-makers.
FROM EXPERIENCE DATA IS NOT ALWAYS USEFUL Some studies in community forestry point out that it is naive to assume that people will always make rational choices given the facts. "Fata" may induce well meaning outsiders to try and convince farmers not to burn grass in order to conserve soil, when in context the farmer has no option available. How else can the farmer supply fodder to hungry cattle? Source: Hoskins (1982) |
PAME is designed for use by people at the community level although it can be facilitated by project field staff. In some instances, especially if the project has not had a great deal of experience in participatory methods, it may be necessary to use the services of an outside consultant experienced in PAME. The consultant can facilitate PAME and train field staff in PAME methods at the same time.
Forestry project field staff may come from an extension, forestry or general background and work with a large or small non-government organization, a national forest service or a large multinational organization such as the United Nations.
Whoever they are, field staff are the facilitators of PAME. They are guided by the community, helping to: support and encourage community creativity and participation, focus the problem solving, analytical and evaluative abilities of the community and interpret information from outside specialists.
A good facilitator will respect the knowledge and creativity of people, and view them as equal partners in the development process. Participatory skills can be developed through field worker training in sensitization and self-awareness. Some excellent manuals for participatory training are available (Bhasin 1978; Tilakaratna 1988). These manuals emphasize the need to develop characteristics such as: the ability to lead but not direct, flexibility, open-mindedness, a non-judgemental approach, honesty, awareness, and concern for the problems of the rural poor.
Effective PAME facilitators will have a broad understanding of the basic concepts of PAME, and the kinds of methods and information gathering tools available to foster participation. They will resist imposing ideas or "convincing" people, instead offering a range of options for a particular situation. They must be willing to look at ways to adapt and develop ideas.
FROM EXPERIENCE - LEADERSHIP STYLES The staff of a project in Thailand described characteristics of leadership styles to enable them to see more clearly which style they were using. They came up with this list: | ||
Authoritarian |
Partecipative | |
Information |
*keep for own personal use |
*inform others, seek from others |
Judge |
*judge alone, use experts |
*seek advice from community members |
Decision-making |
*decides, or consults with superiors |
*decides in consultation with those concerned |
Commitment |
*by pressure, sanctions |
*obtains through persuasion delegation of authority |
Co-ordinate |
* distributes assignments, works with each person, keeps overall picture out of others reach |
* seeks commitment to overall objectives and agreement from those who must carry them out |
Which kind of leadership style does your project have? Think of some examples for either kind. Discuss at staff meetings. What kind of leadership style do the communities have? |
Most projects go through very definite PHASES: project concept and design, planning, site selection and entry into the community, implementation, evaluation, and, exit from the community. Each of these phases offers an opportunity to include communities in the decision-making process.
Some projects already include the community in all phases of project decision-making; some include the community in some phases; and some have not yet taken the opportunity to include the community at all. Although it is ideal to have beneficiary participation from the beginning, any phase can be an entry point for PAME.
The benefits of PAME can be realized at any project stage. Even if it is only the final evaluation that is done by beneficiaries, going through the process of a participatory evaluation can strongly influence future projects in the community. If, for example, the entry point for PAME is an Evaluation Event two years after the project has been operational, PAME can redirect or modify project activities so that they are more likely to result in success.
PAME will vary according to a number of factors: specific community information needs, community cultural, political and social conditions, local resource availablity, or local access to other resources. Because of this variation, there is no one way to go about doing PAME. But the field experiences of those who have experimented with PAME are beginning to provide lessons that help in the development of a conceptual framework.
Participatory Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation is designed so that the approach, the techniques and the tools all fit together to compliment, link and interact with each other in an iterative process.
It will not work well if only the tools are used and the approach is missing. It will not work well if the approach is adopted, but tools are used that do not encourage participation.
This diagram conceptualizes PAME. It visualizes how each part of PAME is linked and interacts with project objectives and activities. Interaction takes place because information from each part is used to make decision about project objectives and activities. The arrows indicate feedback to and from different parts.
A range of participatory tools (23 tools are described in Section 8) can be used to gather the information needed for each PAME activity: Community Problem Analysis (CPA); Partecipatory Baselines (PB); participatory Monitoring and Ongoing Evaluation (PMoe) and Evaluation Events.