TERCERA JUAN: EL RELATO ACERCA DE TRES HOMBRES

Collaborative monitoring and evaluation is a cyclical process that seeks on the one hand to explore collaboration, learning and adaptive governance, but at the same time creates arenas within which these processes can take place. Throughout, this a-priori trade-off between the ability to objectively measure change in social processes, and accepting that the researcher is part of the change that is observed, has been accepted as part of a

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scientific responsibility to advance sustainable development in Africa (Kates and Dasgupta 2007), and also as a necessary precondition for coming to terms with complex system dynamics. Indeed, it was ethically incumbent on the researcher to share information and skills with the research participants, who faced challenges on a daily basis in decision making and the management of their resources. At an individual level, adaptive capacity is enhanced through deliberate and frequent practice, effective reflection, and the acceptance of different perspectives (Fazey et al. 2005). Collaborative monitoring therefore creates the space to reflect on the process of implementation, and can influence the outcomes that are observed.

A shift in perceptions and attitudes have been identified as a positive outcome of collaborative monitoring (Becker et al. 2005; Danielsen et al. 2005a; Poulsen and Luanglath 2005; Uychiaoco et al. 2005; van Rijsoort and Jinfeng 2005). This suggestion was supported during workshop evaluations in this study (Section 3.3.1, Chapter 3). Collaborative monitoring and evaluation can also lead to increased levels of social capital, transparency, sharing of information, an increase in co-operation between actors, and the ability to feed information directly into management decisions, thereby tightening the adaptive management cycle (Gray and Kalpers 2005; Andrianandrasana et al. 2005; Becker et al. 2005; Uychiaoco et al. 2005; Poulsen and Luanglath 2005). Collaborative monitoring and evaluation therefore goes well beyond the data that is produced (Becker et al. 2005; Innes and Booher 1999; Conley and Moote 2003), and addresses the criticism that participatory approaches focus too heavily on knowledge production at the expense of action and awareness raising (Brock 2002). This too was demonstrated during workshop evaluations:

“Monitoring opens our eyes to see forthcoming crises, so that when those crises arrive we are not surprised” (Machubeni, September 2007)

“The governance and process monitoring exercises make things clear and show us the light. The information from the exercises remains within the community, we appreciate that” (Nqabara, June 2007)

Knowledge sharing is an essential first step in the collaborative monitoring process. In this study, capacity building and information sharing did lead to individuals becoming increasingly confident in multi-stakeholder forums and more able to effectively make and implement decisions. Adaptive capacity and social capital increased over time as a result of practice, knowledge sharing and the development of new knowledge, awareness raising, action and reflection (Figure 6.2). These steps are not consecutive but are part of social

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learning and monitoring cycles. As a result, knowledge sharing in some instances lead to a jump directly to appropriate action, and action lead to the development of new knowledge through reflection. Throughout, monitoring provided an arena in which social learning could occur:

“Monitoring opens up a space for us to talk, and to voice our fears. The future is uncertain to us now, and monitoring gives us the space and time to talk about this uncertainty” (Machubeni September 2007)

This learning process involved multiple actors, who brought with them different interpretations of cause and effect relationships in social-ecological systems. Awareness raising was a critical component of the learning process during monitoring because local ecological knowledge, particularly that pertaining to the underlying causes of change in ecosystems, can be unevenly spread within communities, and is often held by individuals rather than groups (Chalmers and Fabricius 2007). To achieve social learning in the sense of a change in a widely held set of beliefs, values and norms (Sayer and Campbell 2004; Keen et al. 2005b), awareness of the social and ecological consequences of actions must be developed. Monitoring is a potentially effective means of raising awareness for those involved in the process, especially when participants are encouraged to reflect on the social and ecological outcomes of their actions, values and beliefs on an on-going basis.

Appropriate action refers to management actions that are ecologically and socially appropriate for the given context. Reflection is an on-going process that takes place throughout the collaborative monitoring process. Reflection is indicated by the feedback loops between the various steps illustrated in Figure 6.1.

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Figure 6.1: The outcomes of a social learning approach to monitoring

Monitoring was however less effective in discerning subtle changes at broader time scales that influenced project implementation. For example, the political election processes that fundamentally influenced the learning process in Machubeni were not picked up during the periodic monitoring events. The outcomes of a monitoring program will be influenced by dynamic interactions between actors and processes operating at scales above and below the operational scale of adaptive co-management (Armitage 2005), and therefore assumptions about the ‗correct‘ scale at which to address and monitor processes poses difficulties (Cash et al. 2006). The selection of an appropriate scale for monitoring can be an exercise of power, since the selection may favour the ability of one set of actors to influence decision making, while disempowering others (Lebel et al. 2005). This was experienced in this research when monitoring effectively took place at the scale of community decision making bodies, and in some cases government officials did not take part due to either conflicts between community members and government officials, or because role players would not talk openly in the presence of other role players. As a result, the community perspective was privileged over other stakeholders during the monitoring process, and key processes operating outside of the local context were not discerned. This raises the issue of participation within monitoring programmes: who should be involved, and when?

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The level of participation in monitoring depends largely on the purpose of the monitoring activity. In adaptive co-management, monitoring and evaluation holds two purposes; on the one hand the intention is to understand complexity, report project progress to donors and to draw general lessons relevant to other sites. This type of monitoring is often conducted by outside ‗experts‘ and can be referred to as technical monitoring (Figure 6.2). In adaptive co- management however, the intention is to build partnerships that promote adaptive capacity. In this sense, the goal is to engage in an active and collaborative learning process between multiple knowledge holders, with the end result being a strong decision making body that is able to manage adaptively. This type of monitoring can be referred to as collaborative monitoring. On the other hand, resource users do monitor and evaluate initiatives based on locally developed sets of objectives that define desired outcomes, and often have already entrenched decision making processes that are locally accepted and appropriate. This type of monitoring is generally conducted by resource users and managers and can be referred to as participatory monitoring. In this thesis the predominant concern has been with collaborative monitoring.

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Collaborative monitoring and evaluation comes with a number of challenges. The first is ensuring that simpler methods are able to detect trends and changes outside of the local context, as already discussed. The long term sustainability of collaborative monitoring is another challenge and is influenced by incentives for resource users to participate in monitoring and evaluation (Hockley et al. 2005; Topp-JØrgenson et al. 2005; Topp- JØrgenson et al. 2005; Poulsen and Luanglath 2005). This is particularly important in developing countries, where trade-offs are often necessary between precision and sustainability (Brashares and Sam 2005; Uychiaoco et al. 2005). Evidence from Laos suggests that monitoring may cease when funding disappears (Poulsen and Luanglath 2005), and analysts suggest that collaborative monitoring cannot be sustained unless obvious benefits accrue to local people (Noss et al. 2005; Stuart-Hill et al. 2005). While some argue that collaborative monitoring approaches are cheaper (Uychiaoco et al. 2005; Brashares and Sam 2005), others warn that collaborative approaches come with considerable costs because of the time needed to facilitate a learning process between many actors (Mutimukuru et al. 2006). Certainly, the experiences of training decision making bodies in monitoring activities for this research was time consuming and expensive because of the travel costs involved in reaching remote sites. Legal structures that enable rule enforcement and also articulate the roles of different actors were vital to the success of monitoring activities, as was the involvement and support of local government.