Generally considered as the last stage of a project lifecycle, evaluation refers to a stage of systematic research and reflection on “what worked” and “what did not”. This stage produces learnings about the process, which can help support decisions about future projects. In addition, evaluation can be important to promote accountability, as well as to value the voices and opinions of the entire community.
Different from the evaluation of the community mobilization itself, the evaluation of a specific project happens just after the execution of the project. The final deliverable of this stage can be an Implementation Report document, which means a document that summarizes everything that happened during the project, as well as communities’ perceptions and learnings on its implementation.
To reflect these communities’ realities and perceptions, it is important to focus on participatory and community-based evaluations. In this video, Lina Ismail from Dalia association explains how they build a supervision and evaluation committee responsible for organizing the evaluation process.
One of the societies that we went to, in regard to the program “The Village Who Decides”, with the voting comes a variety of a committee that is created, from the people of the village, for them to feel the responsibility towards themselves instead of feeling the responsibility towards the Dhalia association. While we were talking about this subject, the community of supervision and evaluation quickly got the idea that they must be the elderly or the powerful individuals in the community, and the men that have a better understanding of this subject. We talked and we discussed a way that everyone can be part of the supervision and evaluation committee, anyone that has something to offer, anyone that can supervise and follow-up the groups easily. It does not necessarily mean men and elders of the community. During this discussion, girls were motivated to get involved and individuals that think that they have to be a certain age, have a certain level of education or work to be part of the supervision and evaluation committee. Young girls raised their hands from grades eleven and twelve, and said that they wanted to be part of the supervision and evaluation committee. Truly, the young girl was the most productive person in the committee and in that age. She used to organize the meetings and call the meetings and take care of the group and gather the group. This all came from here and no one else from the committee. This is one of the stories.
In your e-portfolio
a) Does your community mobilization have evaluation process for each project it undertakes?
b) Do you think that these evaluations reflect the opinions and perceptions of the community engaged and benefited?
