Report of the Regional Workshop - Escap

Participatory monitoring
The four major types of participation presented throughout the Workshop
(information sharing, limited consultation, shared decision-making, actual
decision-making authority) are largely intended for designing projects
rather than implementation, but still provide a good basis for implementation.
Each stakeholder had a different role to play in the project implementation.
The Forestry Department’s role was information sharing. But an important
lesson here was that project implementers must be aware of not only the
benefits of stakeholder participation, but also potential negative impacts as
well. In this project, the attention attracted to the village by the success of the
project increased its visibility. As a result, the Forestry Department became
aware that villagers were farming in prohibited areas. Participation by the Forestry
Department saw the participation rate of villagers’ drop when they realized
that the project was bringing their illegal farming activities to the attention
of the authorities. Increased visibility also brought about rapid development
in the area. Following a media report the Government put in electricity
and roads. But for the village, the development was too much, too fast. Eventually
the area became a popular holiday destination and many of the villagers
left the area. Fifteen years on however, the wildlife was returning to the forest
and there were elephants at the edge of what was once the village. The objectives
of the project were therefore reached, but in a way that was never
planned or welcomed by the project.
P. Participatory monitoring
In his second presentation during the Workshop, Mr. Regino L. Gonzales
Jr. discussed participatory monitoring. A monitoring operation seeks to
determine the extent a process has progressed. It also involves the determination
of problems that restrain some activities from being executed or completed
so that corrective measures can be made on the original implementation
plans.
Projects that use a participatory approach cannot be monitored in the
same way as those using a centralized approach. In participatory projects, the
stakeholders do monitoring in a collaborative fashion. A project’s success or
progress is based on the perception of the monitoring stakeholders who may
base their views not on the basis of pre-defined indicators. The stakeholders’
view of success or progress may depend on the outcome the project brings
about, the changes it precipitates and the impacts made on the intended beneficiaries.
Participatory monitoring requires an information support base. The
stakeholders participating in the process need to access relevant information
and to provide their own views of the project’s status.
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He proposed that an information management system could facilitate
the monitoring operation of a participatory development project. To do this,
such a system should have a central information pool, a mechanism for up-