'Evaluating Participation' Project with People the Practice Of Participation in Rural Development

Abstract

Since "participation" has become an accepted and recognisable objective in development programmes and projects, the issue of its evaluation has come into question. Evaluation is an important component of the project cycle and there is a vast supporting literature, both theoretical and applied, which covers the range of sectors and different types of projects. While we can date the emerging concern for participation in development to the mid-1970s, interest in the evaluation of participation is a more recent phenomenon. Inevitably as agencies have increased support for participation and as it has begun to be implemented, so a concern for evaluation has emerged. It must be said, however, that this concern has yet to translate itself into a substantial body of literature; the truth of the matter is that both conceptually and methodologically the evaluation of participation is still in its relative infancy. In 1980 Lassen commented upon the paucity of "practical guide-lines" on how to evaluate participation; in 1989 the situation is better but we still lack substantial authoritative insights into this complex issue. Indeed some authors (Rahman, 1983; Rifkin et al., 1988) have questioned whether it is at all possible to think of developing an analytical framework to evaluate "participation" in development projects; more generally, however, a variety of projects have begun to tackle the issue and to experiment with different ways of doing this. Before exploring some of the issues involved, however, a number of important points need to be made.