Who views what? Impact assessment through the eyes of farmers, development organization staff and researchers

Abstract

The present study assesses the impact of a rural development project on farmers' livelihoods, as perceived by farmers, development organization staff and researchers. The project concerned, aimed to increase small-scale farmers' financial benefits by promoting the commercialization of Ricinodendron heudelotii (Baill.) Pierre ex Pax kernels (njansang) in Cameroon. The three parties evaluated the impacts of the project, over the 2005-2010 period, through indicators embedded in the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (natural, financial, human, social and physical assets). Project households were compared with control households.Results show that farmers' and development organization staff's views were aligned regarding the relative importance of the indicators to measure success (with overlaps > 85%). The three stakeholders evaluated changes of farmers' livelihood indicators over the 2005-2010 period on 5-point Likert items. All three stated that most indicators improved significantly more in project than in control households (p < 0.001). Development organization staff probably overestimated changes induced by project interventions as they perceived significantly larger changes as compared with farmers and researchers (p < 0.05). Our study highlights the differences between impact perceived by farmers, development organization staff and researchers and helps to build the knowledge base of the potential and reliability of participatory evaluation approaches. Furthermore, an approach to assess impacts on people's livelihood is proposed, combining the strengths of participatory evaluation with those of classic evaluation methods.

Methods to assess farming sustainability in developing countries. A review

“…Bebbington et al (2007) and Singh et al (2012) argue that there is a widely recognized need for individuals, organizations, and societies to find models, metrics, and tools in order to assess sustainability. The risk of quantitative and reductionist assessment is that it can lose sight of the complex and often characteristic picture of reality, as well as what is important at the local level (Cosyns et al 2013). Analytical tools and techniques that only use quantitative approaches, often reductionist, are less important in sustainability impact assessment, and decision-making has to follow more qualitative analysis (Cashmore 2004;Bond and Morrison-Saunders 2011;Bond et al 2012).…”

“…Participation adds to the understanding of the project itself, and thereby helps with the acceptance of decisions and ownership. The process ensures that results are locally adapted and relevant and, therefore, contribute to the overall sustainability (Cashmore et al 2009;Cosyns et al 2013;Stoeglehner and Neugebauer 2013). This also requires a learning attitude to be shown by all the stakeholders involved.…”

Use of the participatory approach to develop sustainability assessments for natural resource management

“…Mayer expert-driven, indicators are typically given a default equivalent weighting, and sometimes care is taken to include equal numbers of social, environmental, and economic indicators. However, bottom-up approaches with a diversity of stakeholders may not follow the same indicator weighting and inclusion patterns, leading to potentially very different assessments (Vilei 2011;Khadka & Vacik 2012a;Cosyns et al 2013). A participatory method is essentially a multidimensional approach to define and understand diverse socioecological problems, and may be implemented using a variety of tools and techniques at multiple scales (Beierle & Cayford 2002;Morse 2008).…”

“…Bolstered by international policy statements such as the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and the 1992 Rio Declaration of Environment and Development, researchers and sustainable development experts have increasingly endeavored to involve local communities and stakeholders in development projects, from conception and implementation through monitoring and evaluation (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992;Brosius et al 1998;Mendoza & Prabhu 2000a;Fraser et al 2006;Gibson 2006b;Bell et al 2012;Hoogstra-Klein et al 2012;Cosyns et al 2013). The participatory approach (also called 'participatory learning and action'; Morse 2008, p. 345) relies primarily on the knowledge of key stakeholders or beneficiaries about local context to define sustainability and identify the indicators to be used in sustainability assessment (Brosius et al 1998;Reed et al 2006;Bell et al 2012).…”

“…Local stakeholders may hold different perspectives and opinions on the utility and success of sustainable development projects, and these differences indicate implementation weaknesses or limitations where the improvements expected by experts did not emerge (Datta & Chatterjee 2012;Moswete et al 2012;Sutcliffe et al 2012;Cosyns et al 2013).The diversity of terms used to refer to the process of local involvement (e.g., participatory monitoring and evaluation, stakeholderbased evaluation/stakeholder assessment, community monitoring/citizen monitoring; Estrella & Gaventa 1998) matches the wide variety of approaches and methodologies used in the process (Bell et al 2012), leading some to question the validity of the outcomes produced by it (Datta & Chatterjee 2012). Bell et al (2012) concluded that the most critical need in this area is to bring some structure to the methodology of the participatory approach, as methodological choices alone may greatly influence assessment outcomes.…”