RE: The pervasive power of western evaluation culture: how and in what ways do you wrestle with ensuring evaluation is culturally appropriate and beneficial to those who legitimise development aid? | Eval Forward
Greetings form Mexico to the Evalforward community!
In rural development, conservation and forest management projects, we have faced the challenge of giving the appropriate dimension to the worldview of indigenous peoples. In Mexico there are more than 68 native peoples and, as in other countries, they are mostly present in rural areas.
In the different projects I have been involved in, we have tried to implement Free Prior and Informed Consent schemes with indigenous peoples throughout the management cycle of rural development projects. We have developed simple tools that have allowed us to propose projects, report on their development and appropriation, carry out process and impact evaluations, as well as the closure and exit strategy of our presence in the territories.
In addition, in the organisation where I work, we have the Dedicated Mechanism Specifically for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (Dedicated Mechanism) project, which is a special project of the Forest Investment Programme. This programme supports the efforts of developing countries to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) through the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in activities that contribute to REDD+ by promoting sustainable productive sub-projects that foster economic development and the exchange of knowledge to strengthen their capacities in the sustainable use of their territories. In this project, monitoring schemes have been developed for the systematisation of information and evaluation to verify the progress of activities in the territories. The development of the tools was very sensitive to the inclusion and context of the participants, so there are some manuals with guidelines and formats that allow the collection of information, even in places with limited internet access. I am sharing the link to the library in case you find it useful: https://www.mde-mexico.org/biblioteca/ (in Spanish)
RE: The pervasive power of western evaluation culture: how and in what ways do you wrestle with ensuring evaluation is culturally appropriate and beneficial to those who legitimise development aid?
Greetings form Mexico to the Evalforward community!
In rural development, conservation and forest management projects, we have faced the challenge of giving the appropriate dimension to the worldview of indigenous peoples. In Mexico there are more than 68 native peoples and, as in other countries, they are mostly present in rural areas.
In the different projects I have been involved in, we have tried to implement Free Prior and Informed Consent schemes with indigenous peoples throughout the management cycle of rural development projects. We have developed simple tools that have allowed us to propose projects, report on their development and appropriation, carry out process and impact evaluations, as well as the closure and exit strategy of our presence in the territories.
In particular, in GEF projects, this is a requirement to be fulfilled whenever the projects have an impact on the territories of indigenous peoples. I would like to share with you a very useful course on this subject at: https://www.fao.org/in-action/capacitacion-politicas-publicas/cursos/ver/fr/c/1397095/ (in Spanish)
In addition, in the organisation where I work, we have the Dedicated Mechanism Specifically for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (Dedicated Mechanism) project, which is a special project of the Forest Investment Programme. This programme supports the efforts of developing countries to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) through the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in activities that contribute to REDD+ by promoting sustainable productive sub-projects that foster economic development and the exchange of knowledge to strengthen their capacities in the sustainable use of their territories. In this project, monitoring schemes have been developed for the systematisation of information and evaluation to verify the progress of activities in the territories. The development of the tools was very sensitive to the inclusion and context of the participants, so there are some manuals with guidelines and formats that allow the collection of information, even in places with limited internet access. I am sharing the link to the library in case you find it useful: https://www.mde-mexico.org/biblioteca/ (in Spanish)
[Contribution translated from Spanish]