Monitoring and evaluating a knowledge management initiative: Participatory Video for monitoring and evaluation

Abstract

Participatory Video (PV) is a process in which participants film, edit, and screen videos on topics important to their livelihoods and communities. PV can be used as part of a development project to enhance community participation, support project monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and gain and capture important insights from within the projects and communities on video. For over 10 years, InsightShare has been delivering PV training and has integrated PV into a range of development projects. Over time, we have evolved a standard yet flexible, context-specific approach to using PV, including using PV to support M&E. To assess PV as a knowledge sharing activity, InsightShare considers impacts on the project level, looking at changes and impacts on individuals and communities, as well as on the organizational level. Across our various projects, we always look for ways that the use of PV, and PV for M&E, can be strengthened and adapted to the various contexts in which it is applied.

Notes

1. InsightShare uses media tools to bring marginalized people together for positive change. The organization has been using PV for over 15 years as a tool for individuals and groups to grow in self-confidence and trust, and to build skills to act for change. The PV methods championed by the organization value and amplify local knowledge, build bridges between communities and decision-makers, and enable people to develop greater control over the decisions affecting their lives. Website: www.insightshare.org

2. In the case of the Nike Foundation project, for example, learning questions were established in the planning stages of the project across several areas of impact: quality of output, innovation and training, participation, sustainability and diffusion and dissemination.

3. If a participant requests for her video diary to be used only by the InsightShare trainers, the dairy is watched only by them, anonymized for reporting purposes, and erased.

4. For more information on our core charter, see http://insightshare.org/about-us/charter.

5. In a conversation with InsightShare staff the M&E coordinator of PCG was recorded saying: ‘We learned a lot from the style of the workshop, that you can build respect through the capacity building, without coming from a superior position.’