 ID: 85057
Added: 2005-07-18 15:16
Modified: 2007-03-25 21:49
Refreshed: 2012-02-10 18:29
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| 14 - Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation with Pastoralists |
Document(s) 8 of 34
Participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) is an integral part of a participatory planning cycle that incorporates both external and indigenous knowledge and perceptions. It allows all participants in the development process to keep track of where they are going and to recognize where and when it is necessary to change track in order to reach their agreed objectives. It stimulates mutual learning by all stakeholders, including policymakers and donors. PM&E is a topic important for development cooperation as a whole, because it embraces questions of impact and sustainability. The review of documented experiences in PM&E with pastoralists was carried out as a follow-up to an earlier review of participatory planning with pastoralists commissioned by the Germany Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) in order to improve development cooperation in natural resource management. GTZ felt that the opportunities for learning from experiences in PM&E with pastoralists would be great because of the particular challenges of working with these mobile and, in most cases, politically and economically marginalized resource users. |
PM&E experiences were sought by looking into official databases of published literature and in the internet, communicating within an informal network of persons and institutions working with livestock-keepers, and drawing from the authors' field experiences. Most of the documents in PM&E among pastoralists and another livestock-keepers came from Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The search covered PM&E of: change in the condition of natural resources (environmental monitoring); how the resources are being managed, i.e., of local institutions and social relations of natural resource management (NRM); intervention projects, referring primarily to the interactions between the local resource managers and external supporting agencies; and participatory experimentation (on-farm/in-herd trials implemented by livestock-keepers and scientists or development workers). The review yielded numerous reports on PM&E training, several guidebooks and plans for establishing PM&E systems, and some cases of facilitating multi-stakeholder platforms for NRM and resolving local conflicts. However, there were only a few examples of actual implementation of PM&E together with pastoralists or other livestock-keepers that gave balanced attention to concerns of both the producers and the intervening agents. For example, in several cases, projects had involved pastoralists in monitoring the use and status of rangeland resources, but seldom according to criteria and methods that were identified together with pastoralists. 
The tools applied in PM&E were the same as in the participatory planning processes (e.g., maps, timelines, historical matrices, ranking, proportional piling). However, field experiences showed that it is not the tools but rather the approach taken to PM&E that is crucial for success: an approach based on negotiation between the local resource users and the external partners on what was to be monitored and evaluated, by whom and in what way. Potentials of PM&EIn only a few cases did pastoralists find the PM&E process sufficiently beneficial for themselves to want to continue it without external project support. People practicing extensive livestock keeping did not want PM&E systems that involved intensive data collection. They preferred simple PM&E systems with low intensity of data collection, using methods of recording and analysis that depend more on memory and discussion than on written records. People who live in sparsely populated areas like the drylands appreciate the opportunity to discuss with peers. Periodic meetings during which environmental or socio-economic conditions or project processes and outputs could be discussed in a semi-structured way seemed to be preferable to data-intensive monitoring. Various visualization techniques used during meetings proved to be useful, such as before-and-after matrices, maps, proportional piling, flow and impact diagrams, and SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) charts. The repeated use of such tools in successive workshops at intervals of several months or a year can form an element of PM&E. Instead of frequent and continuous observations and records, a series of short evaluation workshops can be used to monitor progress. 
Indigenous or grassroots indicators, particularly with respect to NRM, offer a good entry point into PM&E. These can be part of an integrated set of indicators for a PM&E system developed jointly with scientists. Few efforts have been made to encourage local development agents to identify indigenous indicators themselves, although these are the local actors who are most likely to continue practicing a PM&E system with pastoralists. PM&E was sometimes introduced deliberately in an attempt to give a voice to previously marginalized user groups, such as women or nomads. This was sought within the framework of multi-stakeholder platforms that functioned as monitoring mechanisms for better management of common resources. Facilitated negotiation allowed the different interest groups to reach agreement on what can be done within their capacities and means, and what needs to be monitored by whom. It became evident that the negotiation process must continue through joint assessment of the very PM&E system that the platform puts in place, examining whether the concerns of all stakeholder groups have been included. Thus, platform building becomes a continuous process fed by self-evaluation. Truly participatory M&E potentially contributes to local capacity building and institutional development. Appropriate forms of PM&E can help the local people manage their own affairs better and increase the likelihood that project-supported activities will continue after the project ends. Traps in PM&EThe many cases of less participatory M&E systems revealed that attempts to set up PM&E systems can fall into several traps. Failing to answer the questions: Why monitor? Who needs and will use what information? Not all aspects of development can be and should be monitored in a participatory way. PM&E is applicable only with respect to those issues that are important enough to the participants that they are willing to invest their time and other inputs in doing the monitoring. If scientists or development workers wished to monitor certain parameters that were not of immediate interest to the livestock-keepers, or to an exactitude that only scientists wanted, it became necessary to pay local enumerators or to provide other forms of incentive (e.g., free veterinary care) to persuade livestock-keepers to take the measurements and keep the records. Failing to recognize the biases to which participatory approaches to collecting and interpreting information can lead, especially where pastoralists are involved who do not have a relationship of trust with outsiders or who see the exercise as a chance to seize advantages. A case in point is drought monitoring, when declaration of a state of drought can bring financial assistance to livestock-keepers. Many intervention projects were not, at least initially (and, in some cases, also not even later), aware of the extent to which PM&E of environmental trends, organizational development or project-supported activities could become part of a power play between different resource-user groups or levels of government. Lessons LearnedThe issues to be monitored have to be of genuine interest to the partners involved. Indicators must be simple and capable of communicating something to the people wanting to act on the results. The recording needs to be done in a form that partners can manage. 
It must be noted that pastoral communities in developing countries have a strong oral tradition, low levels of literacy and little access to modern information and communication technology, with the exception of radio. The low population density in pastoral areas, their remoteness and their poor infrastructure in terms of roads and telecommunications can make PM&E quite costly, even if records are limited to the most essential. These costs are justified if the PM&E process contributes to building capacities for managing natural - including human - resources. Capacity building for PM&E is necessary not only at the level of local beneficiaries, but also among the other partners in the development process. Development agencies that are truly committed to pastoral development need to make long-term investments in participatory approaches within the framework of process-oriented projects and programs. PM&E can then be a very useful means of enhancing joint learning by pastoralists and other development planners about sustainable use of the rangelands and improving pastoral livelihoods. ReferencesActionAid-Somaliland. 1999. Programme Review June 1998 by Sanaag Community Based Organisation. London: ActionAid. Bayer, W. & A. Waters-Bayer. 2002. Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) with Pastoralists: A Review of Experiences and Annotated Bibliography. GTZ Working Paper. Eschborn: GTZ/Leusden: ETC Ecoculture. Catley, A. 1999c. Monitoring and Impact Assessment of Community-based Animal Health Projects in Southern Sudan: Towards Participatory Approaches and Methods - A Report for Véterinaires sans Frontières Belgium and VÉterinaires sans Frontières Switzerland. Nairobi: IIED Participation and Veterinary Epidemiology Project. Kiema, A. 2000. Méthodologie de Suivi d'Impact des Codes Locaux de Gestion des Ressources Naturelles en Région Sahelienne du Burkina Faso - Zones de Kishi-Beiga, Darkoye et Djobou. Dori: Programme Sahel Burkinabé. Waters-Bayer, A. and W. Bayer. 1994. Planning with Pastoralists: PRA and More - A Review of Methods Focused on Africa. GTZ Working Paper. Eschborn: GTZ. Contributed by:
Ann Waters-Bayer, Wolfgang Bayer
and Annette von Lossau
Email: waters-bayer@web.de
Document(s) 8 of 34
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