Participatory Impact Assessment

The Feinstein International Center, a Tufts University, has a rather comprehensive guide on participatory assessment titled, Participatory Impact Assessment: A Guide for Practitioners (2007).The authors are Andrew Carley, John Burns, Dawit Abebe and Omeno Suji. This guide focuses on measuring the impact of livelihood projects.

An eight stage approach is outlined that includes:

1. Provide a framework for assessing the impact of livelihoods interventions.
2. Clarify the differences between measuring process and real impact .
3. Demonstrate how Participatory Impact Assessment (PIA) can be used to measure the impact of different projects in different contexts using community identified impact indicators .
4. Demonstrate how participatory methods can be used to measure impact where no  baseline data exists .
5. Demonstrate how participatory methods can be used to attribute impact to a project .
6. Demonstrate how qualitative data from participatory tools can be systematically  collected and numerically presented to give representative results of project impact .

The three fundamental questions the PIA attempts to answer are: a) what changes have there been in the community since the start of the project?, b) which of these changes are attributable to the project?, and c) what differences have these changes made to people's lives?

Not all donors are open to participatory methods, especially if it entails the development of indicators by community members during or even after a project. Most donors prefer a list of result and impact indicators prior to project implementation. But, for those projects with greater donor flexibility to use participatory assessment techniques this guide presents some basic steps and methods.

Visualization Methods

Two guys (Ralph Lengler & Martin J. Eppler) form the Institute of Corporate Communication have developed a "Periodic table" of visualization methods that shows examples of about 100 visualization methods in six categories, which are:

1. Data Visualization - representation of quantitative data in schematic form (either with or without axes).
2. Information Visualization - the use of interactive visual representations of data to amplify knowledge...that is, data is transformed into an image. 
3. Concept Visualization -  methods to elaborate (mostly) quantitative concepts, ideas, plans, and analyses.
4. Strategy Visualization -  the systematic use of complementary visual representations in the analysis, development, formulation, communication, and implementation of strategies in organizations.
5. Metaphor Visualization - displays information graphically to organize and structure information.
6. Compound Visualization - complementary use of different graphic representation formats in one single schema or frame.

Examples: 

SM (Stakeholder Map)

FF (Force Field)

The online version is here:  A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

This is a great source for thinking of how to illustrate your ideas and data.

Participatory Photo Mapping

Participatory Photo Mapping (PPM) is a tool for exploring the "experience of place" and for communicating this experience to community stakeholders and decision-makers. Using Participatory Photo Mapping helps uncover supports and barriers to well-being, especially related to the built environment. The PPM approach photography, narrative stories, and mapping.

The PPM process has four steps:
Step 1: Provide participants with digital cameras and GPS units and have them take pictures of their neighborhood, documenting routine use of community and recreation environments.

Step 2: These photos become the objects of focus group sessions in which open dialogue creates emerging themes that are attached to particular images. Conduct focus group and narrative sessions where the photographs are projected onto a wall and community people talk about the images and are engaged in exploring perceptions of their neighborhood environment.

Step 3: The images are then geocoded as part of a neighborhood-level geographic information system that includes other demographic and spatial data, such as population, household characteristics and crime statistics, to create a qualitative GIS focused on the experience of community and recreation environments.

Step 4: Use learned knowledge to communicate the information to local decision-makers, such as health professionals, business owners, community organizations, and policy makers.
Below are some links to videos by Dr. , originally designed, to develop and design collaborative projects and networks to improve health and well-being of communities by strengthening health information systems and sharing that information with community stakeholders and public health decision-makers.

PPM allows you to:

• assess the community and environmental contributions to health, safety and well-being, 
• address peoples’ perceptions of their neighborhood environments, 
• identify environmental factors that impact health and well-being, 
• identify community supports and barriers to health and well-being, present this information to stakeholders and decision-makers. 

Watch the videos (links below) to learn more about this tool.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Video 5

Video 6

With the cost of digital cameras declining each day, and the ability to instantly print these photos, this technique of community participation (from youth to adults) in identifying community problems and or issues and allowing for multiple interpretations of what the photo is about and why it is important to start the discussion on how it can be resolved.

Livelihood Strategy Videos from Gaza, Palestine

The third video focuses on normal Gazan life (Abd, 28 Years old) from Beit Lahya in the Northern Gaza Strip. He is a young farmer confronting challenges with earning an income from his farm to take care of his children and helping friends overcome many personal and economic challenges.

Livelihood Strategy Videos from Gaza, Palestine

The second livelihoods video from Gaza, Palestine, is about Mohammed, who is 30 years of age and works in Save the Children's Livelihood Department. This video presents a young man trying to use his education and commitment to help youth organizations and communities in Gaza.

Livelihood Strategy Videos from Gaza, Palestine

Save the Children's office in Gaza, Palestine, has produced three short videos on livelihood strategies. The first video is about Torfa, a 56 year old woman from Khan Younis, Southern Gaza Strip, who is trying to support her family. I will be featuring the other two videos shortly.

Networks of Self-Categorised Stories

Rick Davies, developer and manager of MandE website, discusses an interesting technique to analyze stories generated from his Most Significant Change method for program/project evaluation. He calls the technique, Networks of Self-Catorgoris(z)ed Stories.

This technique illustrates several of the future trends in evaluation highlighted by Michael Patton in a webinar that I mentioned in an earlier post: transdiscipline (graph theory, content analysis), systems thinking (interdependence), and complex concepts (emergent categories). An illustration of networks of self-categorisation by Rick is below.

For most people in the field, the most challenging aspect of this technique will be obtaining the UCINET (by Analytic Technologies) software, which must be purchased and takes some time to comfortably use, but can quickly and easily generate two-mode data. However, the software, Netdraw, which graphs the data can be download, installed and used for free.