CAPSTONE Workshop on Programme Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation

In the series of support offered to the Southern India Cohort under the CAPSTONE programme, PRIA India introduced the Participatory Planning, Monitoring, and Impact Evaluation (PPM & IE) workshop in Hyderabad. 12 development professionals from 6 organisations participated in the workshop. This workshop was facilitated by Dr. Kautuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay, Mr. Binoy Acharya (UNNATI, Ahmedabad) and Ms. Harshita Umrao.

The objectives of the workshop were:

• Developing an understanding of participatory planning, monitoring, and impact evaluation of development projects
• Developing core competencies to design participatory planning, monitoring, and impact evaluation framework for development projects
• Developing skills to use practical tools for planning, monitoring, and impact evaluation for development projects

The workshop was initiated with expectations mapping and discussion around the social change process. 

Over the decades, the approach to development has evolved from welfare-based to governance and accountability. Where welfarism is top to bottom, governance and accountability call for participation and empowerment. One or a combination of approaches can be applied based on the development problem and theory of change.

With the focus on the governance and accountability approach, community participation can’t be ignored. Community participation follows a hierarchy of engagement from being passive recipients of programmes to being mobilized to decide their future. The conversation highlighted the issue of ‘whose reality’ and how most of the well-intended organisations end up perceiving their view as the community’s reality. It further discussed the importance and ways to ensure community participation. 

The project management cycle consists of project appraisal, planning, implementation & Monitoring, Evaluation, and Closure. 

Community participation has to be ensured throughout the project management cycle. Learning from monitoring & evaluation of results (output, outcome, and impact) feeds into the next cycle of project management. The impact is the higher-order objective seeking to achieve through this project, often in combination with others. It describes the anticipated long-term objective towards which the project will contribute. Outcome describes the intended effects of the project, and the immediate objective for the direct beneficiaries as a precisely stated future condition. Outputs are expressed as the targets which the project must achieve and sustain within the life of the project. Monitoring indicators have to be decided in the project planning phase itself.

"GOOD PLANNING ONLY CAN TELL WHAT A GOOD ACHIEVEMENT IS."

The first step in the planning process is identifying the development problem. There could be several development problems in a region faced by a community, and it is important to identify the problems which an organisation may like to put resources to resolve. It requires an understanding of establishing a link with the problem vis-à-vis organisational vision, mission, priorities, and competencies. The consequences and causes of the central problem are clustered and analysed. Log framework is the most used approach to design, monitor, and evaluate development projects. The components, overall objective, specific objectives, and result areas for the log frame matrix are derived from the problem tree analysis. Indicators for each result area are formulated which are regularly tracked to monitor the results of the project. The means of verification for each indicator is dwelled upon. Lastly, assumptions & risks are identified based on the analysis of the environment. Identification of risks and assumptions should be given utmost importance for the achievement of the result areas.

Data collection and its management become crucial to monitor the indicators. The baseline needs to be collected before initiating a project and periodical data collection to monitor the indicators have to be collected using different methodologies and approaches. To be impactful, it is suggested to have disaggregated data like gender-based, vulnerability-based, etc. The means of verification have to be maintained, analysed, and used religiously.

The facilitators spent some time discussing the attributes of proposal writing for institutional donors. A proposal should be such that it guides and eases the process of implementation. Unlike many of our notions, that proposal is about good language, it is rather about clear communication. It should communicate an organisation’s theory of change, development problem and strategy to resolve the problem. This process should also have undergone consultation with the community. Unfortunately, most of us are not able to comprehend the problem itself.

The workshop also dwelled upon the preparedness of a CSO to engage in these OD processes. The workshop was closed with a reflection and feedback session.