"Stories of Change",

a workshop on participatory monitoring and evaluation

Terry Bergdall

 

PME differs from traditional views of evaluation (usually external, involving someone outside a project reviewing the project's activities against project objectives) and monitoring (usually an internal exercise within the project, ongoing). PME is concerned with involving the beneficiaries or clients or target groups in the evaluation process, as a part of the project's activities from the very beginning. PME is kept as simple as possible; is integrated into ongoing work; and involves all stakeholders in a common learning process that focuses on "understanding", not just on justifying funding. It places the primary participants in the centre, and enables their views to drive the entire project process.
 
Qualitative methods tend to be "inductive", looking for patterns, not starting with assumptions, and being bottom up; quantitative methods tend to be "deductive", starting with a view of a desired state, and looking for empirical examples of these indicators, and is usually "top down". PME combines quantitative and qualitative in a unique way with the goal of creating a credible story about what has happened in a project of activity. People like numbers, seeing this as "real and hard data" but they also like stories, which is what people normally find more interesting; PME combines these.

 

 
PME has three main elements:
  • Quantitative - tracking outputs, or the kinds of things that are occurring, based on what the participants expect the outputs to be. In the planning stage, participants are asked to indicator what outputs they expect, and what benefits they think will come from those outputs. It is those numbers which are tracked, and some of them might normally be invisible  - for example, if introducing a new agricultural technique saves time and money as well as producing a higher crop yield and allowing a greater area to be cultivated, what will people do with the time they have saved? The outputs to be tracked are identified in participatory discussions with the participants at the start of the project . Terry always places such numerical outputs at the start of the evaluation report;
  • Qualitative - identifying the significant changes that have occurred, as a result of the project, from the perspective of the primary partners. What do they think the primary changes have been? This tends to be in the form of a story or stories (see example below), rather than numbers. The collected stories then make it possible to hold regular conversations about which of the qualitative changes people think have been most significant, and provide the basis to bring other stakeholders into the PME conversation in a way that can be transformative .
  • Learning Structure - PME reflects on what is occurring during the project, usually in quarterly monitoring meetings with participants that:
a) document and review the output numbers and the situation;
b) identify the changes from their point of view;
c) lessons learned - what have people learned;
d) next steps.
 
When people or organizations affected by but not directly involved in the project are added, reflecting on the stories of change that have been collected among participants can make evaluation a transformative process in which people reflect on which changes are important to them and why.
 
The notes above were written by Rosemary Cairns; the notes below were written by Terry Bergdall and provided as a handout to workshop participants.

 

Stories of Change – some examples

 

School Renovation in Ovsište

 

Ovsište is a small farming village in the rural municipality of Topola in central Serbia located about 100 kilometers south of Belgrade.  According to the municipality census figures of 2002, its population consisted of 628 people and 268 households.  Thirty-two children between the ages of six and twelve were registered at the local elementary school in 2002.  Based on priorities determined by the community at a local planning meeting in November 2002, a decision was made to renovate the school building.  All three classrooms and the administrative office were renovated over a two month period with completion occurring in March 2003.  This involved floor repair (133 m²), repair and refinishing of walls (470 m²), installation of new wall paneling (135 m²), hanging of five new doors, installation of new rain gutters (125 m), and renovation of the school’s entire electrical system.  The total cost was €12,130; €1,180 was raised in cash by the community, €5,450 came from the municipality, and €5,500 from Topola Rural Development Program (TRDP).  The community "local action group" selected the following as the four most significant changes as a result of this project.

 

The following stories were discussed and agreed upon by the community residents at a quarterly review meeting in March 2003. Below is documentation of the stories.  Effort has been made to maintain the original voice of community members.

 

For the first time in ten years, Ovsište has successfully completed a development project. Several different projects had been started in the Ovsište during the past ten years, but not one of them was ever completed:  repair to the water system, renovation of the access road, maintenance work on the health clinic, repairs to the church.  Money was even collected from residents for doing many of these things, but still every one of them ended in failure.  This time we successfully organized all of the work and properly managed the donations so that the school renovation could be completed.  We started and we finished!  If someone can’t visit our school to see it for themselves, then photographs of the “completion ceremony” are proof of our success.

 

Importance of this change as viewed by the community:  We have pride in what we have accomplished.  It makes us think about other things we want to do.

 

Children now have a more conducive environment for learning.  Before, children were easily distracted from their studies because of the condition of the building.  Moving their desks to avoid dripping rainwater became a game.  The school was full of noise and laughter when they should have been attending to their lessons.  The students were also careless about the use of the building and of their educational materials; they simply tracked mud into the building with little regard to the mess it made.  Since books and other materials were always becoming wet, students didn’t take very good care of them.  Now, children are much more careful and remove their muddy shoes before coming in and put their books away.  They are no longer distracted and are better able to focus their attention on their studies.

 

Importance of this change as viewed by the community:  Anything that encourages children to be more serious about their studies is important for parents.

 

We learned practical details about supervising projects during renovation of the school.  We were very poor supervisors in the past.  Though we contributed money, we did not adequately give attention to how it was used or where it went.  Then in the end we were disappointed.  In doing this project, we learned a lot of things about making good preparation plans, attracting good contractors, and then overseeing their work.  The tender (contractual) guidelines were especially valuable for us since we had never had that kind of experience before.  Everyone knew exactly what was happening and why.

Importance of this change as viewed by the community: Without good supervision, nothing happens.  We know because he had a lot of past failures due to poor supervision!

 

Confidence has been gained for launching new development activities.  Several years ago we tried to improve our church.  When the money we collected disappeared, we became discouraged and quit.  Completion of the school has encouraged us to try again on the church.  Work is underway now.  We are applying lessons learned from the school work; we only pay part of the money at the beginning and will make full payment only after work is completed.

Importance of this change as viewed by the community:  People are now ready to do more things together.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

The "Stories of Change" approach described in this presentation is one particular type of "participatory monitoring and evaluation" (PM&E).

 

 

 

A PM&E process of regularly reviewing progress on local initiatives, discussing lessons learned, making new plans, and then reflecting together on accomplishments and change can be a deeply profound experience for a community. These PM&E events, or “participatory assessments” as they are often known, provide a practical opportunity for groups to become self-conscious about their latent power. This was certainly the case in Ovsište; one can easily imagine their excitement as they rehearsed and revelled in their accomplishment. Such discussions enable groups to intentionally build a larger story for themselves about who they are as a group and what they can accomplish through their own concerted efforts. These are all based on strong experiential messages that have the potential to dramatically alter self-perceptions. Ultimately, this is the key to long-term changes in behavior. Therefore, this PM&E approach, with its emphasis on “stories of change,” is in a very real sense of the word, transformative.

 

 

 

 


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