Introduction:

Experience has shown that participation improves the quality, effectiveness and sustainability of development actions. By placing people at the centre of such actions, development efforts have a much greater potential to empower and to lead to ownership of the results.

The UNDP Office of Evaluation and Strategic Planning (OESP) has been assessing the value and role of participation as part of its broader effort to redefine the function and role of evaluation within the organization. During this process, OESP has had to address several key questions, including:

• How can evaluation be a tool for development?
• How can evaluation build local capacity and contribute to a learning
  culture?
• How can evaluation contribute to the achievement of sustainable human
  development (SHD)?
• What is the value added of more responsive evaluation methods and
  would such methods require a change in attitudes and skills by
  UNDP staff?

In its search for answers to these questions, OESP has been experimenting with initiatives that involve greater participation of programme stakeholders and beneficiaries. Commonly referred to as "participatory evaluations", these experiments challenge the traditional way in which development is viewed and carried out.

While to some people, the participatory approach may represent a radical departure from past practices, others see it as a logical step in the evolution of development thinking and methods. For example, UNDP policies to promote decentralization, national execution of programmes and partnerships have all sought to transfer ownership to its partners in programme countries. Further decentralization is taking place within developing countries. Grass-roots efforts, bottom-up approaches, initiatives that empower are all focusing attention on the poor and disenfranchised, whose opinions and participation are increasingly being sought.

The growing interest in participatory evaluation parallels the growth of such concepts as empowerment, democratization, partnership and sustainability. Each of these concepts attempts in one way or another to give a greater say to the spectrum of voices in our programming countries­not only to national governments but also to civil society, communities and municipalities, the poor and the disenfranchised ­ who have been the object of development cooperation and whose voices have not been adequately heard.

Purpose of the Handbook

In view of the growing importance that is being attributed to participation, this handbook has been prepared to:

• provide UNDP staff with a better understanding of what is meant by a
  participatory approach to evaluation and how they can support the
  participatory evaluation process;
• help to introduce participatory evaluations into UNDP programming,
  thereby enabling the multitude of stakeholders that are central to UNDP
  development efforts­the poor, local communities, Governments­to have
  a much stronger voice through development efforts that are more
  responsive to their needs and that contribute to capacity-building at the
  local and national levels;
• strengthen the learning and management culture of UNDP.

Audience

The principal users of the handbook, which has been designed primarily for UNDP staff, include:

• Resident Representatives and Deputy Resident Representatives, who over
  see the country programmes and make critical decisions about the
  allocation of resources, which programmes and projects will be evaluated
  and the approach to be used;
• National and International programme staff and Junior Professional
  Officers (JPOs), who are directly responsible for the day-to-day manage
  ment of projects and who appraise, review or evaluate development
  activities and need assistance in designing field missions and preparing
  terms of reference (TOR).

UNDP staff may also want to share this handbook with colleagues who are interested in applying participatory evaluation techniques to their projects. Thus, it will also be useful for Government counterparts, project leaders and consultants who need to have a better understanding of how a participatory evaluation works and how it fits into UNDP programming.

Organization of the Handbook

This volume provides the information needed, and helps to develop the sensitivity and skills required, to support evaluations that place greater emphasis on stakeholder participation in the evaluation process. It is divided into five parts.

Parts one to four, which present an overview of the participatory evaluation approach, include:

• a brief description of the evolution of the participatory approach;
• a comparison of participatory evaluation with more conventional
  evaluation approaches;
• a discussion of the role of participation in UNDP;
• a description of the framework of a participatory evaluation and a
  discussion of some of the practical issues involved in doing such
  an evaluation.

Part five consists of a stand-alone package developed around the case study MONEY AND MAMBAS. It describes an attempt at undertaking a participatory evaluation of a rural water supply and sanitation project and focuses on the practical aspects of applying participatory evaluation techniques:

• Pre-planning, including negotiation of the TOR, assessing the
  participatory evaluation context and identifying enabling and inhibiting
  factors surrounding that context;
• Collaborative planning with stakeholders;
• Data-gathering and analysis;
• Reflection and follow-up.

This case study is presented as a training module which can be the subject of a mini­workshop to introduce staff to the practice of participatory evaluation. We suggest that this exercise can be accomplished within 3 to 4 hours.

A glossary of basic terms, examples of some of the basic tools that can be used in participatory evaluations as well as lists of manuals and resource persons, groups and institutions are presented in the annexes.