Ongoing monitoring: while the engagement or implementation of a community owned solution is ongoing, it is important to understand how well activities are going, if the engagement is starting to make a difference, and if any challenges or problems are happening that require a change in course. Gathering feedback after activities such as workshops and implementation of management changes is valuable. It is also a good idea to encourage the community team to keep a diary and it might be useful to carry out interviews with community members to assess how things are going.

How often you undertake monitoring and how you do it will depend on the type of engagement or implementation of community owned solution that occurs. In terms of how often monitoring takes place then it needs to be of a frequency to ensure you will be able to notice any changes. In terms of how then undertaking interviews, using participatory video (you will learn about this in Unit 2), is an effective way of recording change.

Example 1 – Impact of engagement

To determine the level of understanding of the community owned solution approach and whether there was improved ability to collectively influence decision-making, within the community, interviews with selected community members could be undertaken every 6 months over a 2-year period. This would allow a change in understanding to be determined.

Example 2 – Implementation of a community owned solution

To determine whether rice yields had been maintained and whether flooding had been reduced you could interview farmers following the harvest and following flood events to determine how effective the new management approach has been.

Example 3 - Implementation of a community owned solution to retain cultural identity

To determine whether the youth have knowledge of traditional art, music and dance the community have decided to interview youth, from across the community, before, after and a few months after an event to determine whether they have knowledge of important cultural aspects of the community.