Practical and cost-effective indicators and procedures for monitoring the impacts of rural development projects on land quality and sustainable land management

The impact(s) of development activities on land quality often become manifest only several years after termination of a project. Baseline studies and cost-effective monitoring needs to be initiated while activities are on-going, and this needs to be continued in post-project activities. This is possible, however, only when relatively simple and cost-efficient monitoring methods are available. These tools, however, are still rare and need to be further developed. An international working group, initiated by GTZ and SDC (Swiss Development Co-operation) and strongly supported by the ‘Land Quality Indicator Initiative’ of the World Bank, developed guidelines for impact monitoring to address this constraint. These included a toolkit of relatively easy to handle and cost-effective methods. The impact monitoring procedure presented involves seven basic steps: identification of stakeholders, identification of core issues, formulation of impact hypotheses, identification and selection of indicators, selection and development of monitoring methods, data analysis and assessment of sustainable land management, as well as information management.