CAPSTONE Workshop on PPME

In the series of support offered to 25 organisations of the North-Eastern India cohort, Participatory Research in Asia – PRIA conducted a workshop on Participatory Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Impact Assessment (PPME&IA). A total of 25 participants from 21 organisations participated in the workshop held from 16-20th January 2023 in Guwahati, Assam. The workshop was facilitated by Mr. Binoy Acharya, Dr. Kaustuv K. Bandyopadhyay, and Mr. Pradyut Bhattacharya. 

The workshop objectives were: 

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

The purpose of non-profits is to bring about social change and each Non-profit has a different theory of change for doing it. The roots of the non-profit sector in India may be located in philanthropy and religious obligations enjoined on individuals to help the needy. Development work has been done by religious institutions and labour unions for ages. But the work was primarily limited to relief. Slowly, it was realized that this mechanism doesn’t change the situation but provides a temporal fix. The development theory shifted to asset creation, then to input-oriented programmes, and then to capacity building, and behaviour change, as an approach to address poverty. This approach to development brought in empowerment, participation, transparency and governance as important pillars for change. 

Stakeholder participation is defined as “The organised efforts to increase the control over resources and regulative institutions on the parts of groups and movements of those hitherto excluded from such control. -UNRISD,1970” and “A process through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives, decisions, and resources which affect them. – World Bank, 1990.” 

The importance of the role of stakeholder participation in all the phases of a development programme is undebatable. It enables the ownership of stakeholders and brings in important, deep-rooted, real-time insights and hence increases the chances of success. There are broadly four stages of participation starting from passive participation which is the lowest form. The next comes consultative participation in which the non-profit makes the community aware and consults with them. Mobilization is one step above awareness and occurs at the functional participation level. At this stage, the community is assumed to understand its issues. The highest form of participation stage is self-mobilized or empowered. This is where decisions like rotational leadership are taken within a self-mobilized group considering that all the members are empowered. The stakeholder participation matrix as a tool, guides through the ways of engaging with different kinds of stakeholders. 

The project is a set of activities planned to achieve specific objectives and goals within a timeline. The project has to be looked at as means to the end. In a larger social development context, there are multiple themes/sectors (e.g., livelihood) and further multiple projects of different durations. The entire project management cycle constitutes Input >Activities>Outputs>Outcomes>Impact.  

In many respects, problem analysis is the most critical stage of project planning, as it then guides all subsequent analysis and decision-making on priorities. Brainstorming exercises with stakeholders are best suited for the problem analysis. It is essential to ensure that “root causes” are identified and not just the symptoms of the problem(s). The Problem Tree Analysis is a tool to do it. It identifies the negative aspects of an existing situation and establishes the cause-and-effect relationship between the identified problems. Once the causes and effects are mapped, the organisation identifies which cause or combination they want to address. These negative situations are converted into positive solutions and become the objectives of the project. This further helps discloses the activities required. 

The need for impact assessment of a programme can’t be denied. During implementation, some accidental learning may happen but the analysis and reflection of the data, collected during execution is very important to remain relevant and contribute to the mission of the organisation. A Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) is an approach used to design, monitor, and evaluate development projects. It is concerned with the planning procedures of the problem analysis, the development of objectives and indicators, and the identification of risks and assumptions, which feed into the overall programme plan. 

A Management Information System (MIS) is used for decision-making and coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organisation. It is developed with the help of data collected. It is needed to plan and evaluate the activities.  

It has to be kept simple and functional. It contains information required (including beneficiary name, village), plan, targets, and achievements. If the data has to be maintained monthly for a project of 3 years, it can be kept monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, annual, and then total for 3 years at the last. 

In the given context of growing Institutional funding (especially CSR) in the country, it is important to develop skills like communication. Proposal writing is one of the important skills to incorporate in an organisation. Before writing a proposal, the identification of the 3Ps is crucial – People, Purpose, and Process. A proposal should be efficient, effective and economical. 

It is important to include a detailed rationale, interventions, strategy, and sustainability in the proposal. It follows the VMOSA principle- vision, mission, objectives, strategies, and action plan. The proposal should be such that the funder can accept the problem to be addressed. While designing the proposal, different stakeholders should also be consulted to increase their ownership in other phases of the project. 

The workshop ended with an open session for queries and evaluation of the workshop. 

Workshop Agenda