Participatory Evaluation of Development Assistance: Dealing with Power and Facilitative Learning

This article addresses two issues: the theoretical strengthening of the participatory evaluation concept, and the strengths and weaknesses in practice of this approach. It demonstrates how participatory evaluation can be strengthened conceptually and theoretically if based on fourth-generation evaluation and Giddens's structuration theory. Through an analysis of two evaluations in Zambia and Swaziland, strengths and weaknesses of applying the approach in practice are illustrated. The analysis includes elements from Foucault's theory on power, and from theories about decision-making and learning from political and organizational science. It concludes that, using a participatory evaluation approach, interaction and thus learning processes among stakeholders are initiated and facilitated, and that this benefits the ongoing project-implementation process. The characteristic asymmetrical relationship of power between donor and recipient is potentially ameliorated, allowing the less powerful a greater influence on the evaluation and the ensuing implementation process.