Abstract

This research, a case study, focused on investigating the factors that, positively or negatively, influenced the participation of beneficiary communities in the M&E system of ChildFund Vietnam, a Non-Profit Organization working in the field of community development in Vietnam.

By interviewing and discussing with the people living in the three communities in Hoa Binh province, Vietnam, followed by a deep process of analysis, it was found that the level of participation of beneficiary communities in project M&E was imbalanced between various ChildFund funded-projects. Beneficiaries were actively involved in doing M&E in some project activities, but remained passive in other project activities. In the M&E process, beneficiaries actively became involved in the early and middle stages of the M&E process, including indicator identification, data collection, and data analysis; however, their participation remained low in the later stages, which include information sharing and taking corrective actions. Taking a further look at the community itself, it was found that, within the communities, the M&E work was mostly carried out by community’s leaders and representatives at the community and village levels, but beneficiary households remained passively involved in the M&E process.

This research concluded that the participation of beneficiary communities in the M&E system was strongly promoted by the long capacity building process and the formal role assigned to them in performing the work of M&E. Careful planning also helped beneficiaries to actively participate in the next stages of the M&E process. Other factors such as local power/authority relation, the lack of a mechanism for information sharing and taking corrective actions inhibited the potential participation of beneficiaries in the M&E system.

Disciplines

Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Download

Share

 
COinS