Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PME): Principles, Practices and Process

Abstract

Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) is a crucial epistemology that is practiced in the democratic praxis of development and citizen governance. To establish a general framework on PM&E, this inquiry argues that the transformative nature of PM&E embroils the intentional redistribution of epistemic power like legitimate power to formulate problems, set standards of success and maintain knowledge. Its core principles, like empowerment, intersectional inclusiveness as well as downward accountability, are cross-examined in the analysis to see how they logically dismantle the top-down logic of conventional evaluation. These principles are motivated by practices such as participatory mapping, collaborative data analysis, and negotiated action-planning which together reposition stakeholders as the key providers of data. The paper also describes the iterative process of organizing this engagement that is characterized as a conduit of institutionalizing current social learning and adapting management as opposed to compliance auditing. The unresolved paradox between the deep and contextual rigor of authentic engagement, and external requirements of simplified and standardized accountability measures is the essential gap that ought to be explored. In the face of such conflict, the analysis concludes that the prospective effectiveness of PM&E depends upon its strategic institutionalization. This implies simple reorganizing the donor reporting systems, professionalizing of facilitator as power and process brokers, and institutionalizing the evidence produced at the community level into the planning and budgeting processes of the social sectors. Eventually, PM&E emerges as the inseparable science that transform commitments and normative implications of equity and self-determination into the key drivers of social change. Thus, PM&E takes the stance of the basis of equitable and sustainable development.