Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation in Projects

Monitoring systems facilitate steering and controlling of projects. Three levels of monitoring may be distinguished:

• Monitoring of activities provides information as to which activities were planned and which activities were carried out
• Monitoring of results tells us what and how much was achieved
• Monitoring of impacts provides answers concerning the effects of our work

Impact monitoring in particular allows to observe and to learn from those positive and negative changes effected through interventions. Who and what has changed and was this intended or not? How and why have these changes taken place? Why have some of the intended changes not taken place?

Impact monitoring has the potential to fulfill several important functions in the development process. It may be used as:

• a project tool which allows the management to gear activities to the intended results, to document this and to improve performance quality,
• an organised communication process between all stakeholders about objectives, procedures and progress
• an organisational development process initiating learning in the participating organisations

Impacts of economic promotion projects may be described in three distinct dimensions: the use of the project (whether, how and how often and by whom are project services used?), the benefit of the project (for the beneficiaries), and further impacts of the project in the project setting beyond the direct benefit. For a systematic application of impact monitoring in these three dimensions, six procedural steps are proposed. These steps are not necessarily in a chronological order, i.e. it may make sense to repeat step 2 after having completed step 3 and vice versa.

1. Agreeing upon Monitoring Objectives

If the initiative for impact monitoring comes from the project management, stakeholders need to be identified, and expectations and interests in impact monitoring need to be clarified. Based on this clarification, monitoring objectives as well as methods and tools can be determined, and a person responsible for the process design can be selected.

2. Identifying Impact Areas

In a second step, the most important stakeholders identify potential impact areas. Significant questions might be: which changes (in attitude and/or behaviour) of which organisations, groups or individuals are the stakeholders striving for? Most relevant impact areas will be selected for observation during project duration. In the beginning, it makes sense to concentrate on only few impact areas.

3. Generating Impact Hypotheses

In a joint effort with the stakeholders, assumptions (hypotheses) will be made as to what kind of changes on the different levels and in the various impact areas will be effected through which kind of project intervention. This process leads to a reflection and an awareness of potential - desired and/or unwelcome - impacts of project interventions.

4. Developing Indicators

As a next step, the project staff needs indicators ('sign posts', 'bench marks') to recognize whether and how far the project effects changes and also whether and how far the hypotheses are correct. Before new indicators are developed with the users/target groups, it will be considered whether monitoring systems are already existing in the project that will be able to recognize the intended changes.

5. Selecting Observation Methods

On the background of the material, human and financial resources, the stakeholders' expectations concerning data quality and quantity (exactness, reliability, representativity) will now be clarified. Based on these considerations, data collection methods and instruments will be selected and adapted (baselinesurvey, before-after-comparison, comparison with control groups, qualitative, quantitative and/or semi-quantitative methods, written or oral interviews), and staff responsibility will be clarified.

6. Analysing the Information and Feeding It Back Into the System

Continuous feedback of monitoring information into project planning and implementation, and subsequent improvement of activities is the most important step. It is thus a matter of agreement, when, how and by whom information from the observation will be analyzed and judged. It should also be determined when and how resulting decisions are made and improvements introduced.

From: Orientierungsrahmen für das Wirkungsmonitoring in Projekten der Wirtschafts- und Beschäftigungsförderung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung armutsmindernder Wirkungen,
Teil I - M. Vahlhaus, Th.Kuby: Wozu Wirkungsmonitoring? - Eine Orientierungshilfe, Teil II - M. Vahlhaus: Wie führen wir Wirkungsmonitoring ein/durch? Hinweise, Methoden und Instrumente zur Ein- und Durchführung, GTZ 2000

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