Asia Pacific Journal of Evaluation

Elene Cloete[1], Valerie Lejarde[2]

Elvis Gatchalian[3], Bernadette Estoesta[4]

Abstract

This practice note shares the experiences, reflections, and contributions of local stakeholders participating in a community-based WASH research initiative in the rural Philippines. The women leaders’ reflections revealed that participatory research and evaluation conducted within the community by its own members has the potential to foster capacity-building and empowerment, cultivate a profound understanding of the community’s felt issues and situations, promote the relevance and utilization of the evaluation results and data, and establish a sense of trust and community cohesion. Collaborative and participatory research and evaluation, therefore, represent an empowering and transformative alternative to traditional top-down versions.

Keywords: Community-led Development; Community-led Monitoring and Evaluation; Rural Philippines; Community-led WASH Research

1. Introduction

Community empowerment that is rooted in transformative and liberatory processes unfolds when practitioners champion dialogical, dynamic, and non-dominant approaches to community development (Lejarde, 2023). However, when research and evaluations are conducted in a top-down and prescriptive way, there is little room for dialogue, collaboration, and mutual engagement.

There are alternatives to such evaluation and research practices. Fetterman’s Empowerment Evaluation, for example, prioritizes the active engagement of all stakeholders. The foundation of Empowerment Evaluation lies in the idea that individuals empower themselves, emphasizing that the “selection of inside facilitators increases the likelihood that the process will persist and be internalized in the system, creating opportunities for capacity building” (Fetterman, 1995, p. 181). Therefore, it promotes a scenario where participants acquire the knowledge and experience to conduct the evaluation, fostering empowerment rather than dependency on external evaluators (Fetterman, 1995).

Another evaluation alternative, Mertens’s Transformative Evaluation, promotes social justice (Mertens, 2008) by making power hierarchies explicit and then using the evaluation outputs and experience to address such power differences (Mertens, 2021). Evaluation through a transformative lens engenders a deliberate inclusion of those in vulnerable and marginalized communities, employing culturally responsive methods, and addressing power disparities (Mertens, 2021).

Similar trends are active among applied researchers working within the international development sector. Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) and Participatory Action Research (PAR), for example, prioritize equal participation and ownership, reciprocity, and co-learning among all stakeholders, with social change as the goal (Hacker 2017). By emphasizing inquiry, Opsina, Burns, and Howard (2021) prioritize learning, insisting on a learning-action-learning cycle as a research process and goal. Research approaches that champion meaningful participation, inclusion, and voice of all stakeholders, therefore, also hold the potential of not only empowerment but also strengthening communities’ learning and collective action.

Transformation through research and evaluation activities does not happen automatically. Instead, organizations committed to such an agenda should create opportunities for participatory evaluation, explicitly emphasizing the importance of aligning evaluation practices with the diversity and exigencies of program contexts (Chouinard 2013, p. 248). This shift is crucial for cultivating a more democratic and culturally responsive program environment (p. 249). Therefore, by reframing their evaluation and research activities as opportunities also to empower and transform all stakeholders, organizations and funders alike, can strengthen commitments to “shift the power”^[5] and decolonize aid and development agendas. But what does cultivating and then promoting local ownership over data look like? And if such practices are implemented, how do local stakeholders perceive of it? What do they think about it, especially if they have never participated in monitoring, evaluation, and research activities?

Our practice note responds to these questions. In what follows, we introduce a recent collaborative WASH research initiative between two Philippines-based community groups, a local nonprofit and U.S.-based WASH researchers. We share themes emerging from reflection sessions with the local research team members, during which they described their experiences, major takeaways, and challenges. Our practice note is not about the WASH study and its results, even though it sets the stage for our discussion. Instead, it focuses on the grassroots researchers’ experiences. While external research and evaluations are relevant to certain contexts, we argue that within the realm of community-led development, participatory research and evaluation activities hold empowering and transformative potential.

2. SIKAP, PSBA, and WASH

Outreach Philippines, Inc. (OPI) facilitates community-led development (Cloete and Dasig Salazar, 2022). Drawing from its Participatory Human Development (PHD) methodology, OPI practitioners organize communities to identify and then seek solutions for their poverty-related challenges. Corresponding solutions manifest as community-managed and own projects, with both issues and projects reflecting context-specific needs. To manage their projects sustainably, communities need social infrastructure. OPI practitioners, therefore, support communities in establishing community-based organizations (CBOs), with grassroots leaders and organizational systems needed for ongoing collective action. Such organizations include San Isidro Kaakibat sa Pag-unlad Association (SIKAP) and Pag-asa ng Sitio Bimmangon Association (PSBA), where co-authors Elvis and Beng have facilitated community organizing since 2019 and 2020, respectively.

3. SIKAP

Poor sanitation has been a pressing concern in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija Province, where SIKAP is located. To address this issue, the organization conducted an in-depth analysis of inadequate sanitation’s impact on households. Recognizing the issue’s urgency, SIKAP then designed and implemented a sustained community-led sanitation loan project in 2021 (Toizer and Cloete, 2024). They built 20 new toilets and upgraded 26 existing units, leading to significant change, especially for women (Sorcher et al., 2023).

In October 2023, SIKAP, alongside WASH scholars, revisited sanitation again. Acknowledging the importance of continuous improvement, they were curious about enhancing their sanitation unit’s efficiency and effectiveness, including evaluating their existing sanitation project. SIKAP, OPI, and the WASH researchers decided to implement a collaborative research project to scope existing needs, usages, and threads of WASH in their community. SIKAP identified ten women leaders to join the research team. The full team then reflected on their overarching research questions before refining the content of an existing and standardized survey tool. Following informal conversations and transect walks the research teams also decided to include questions related to fecal sludge management practices and the impact of climate change on sanitation. After finalizing the research tool, the SIKAP researchers received some additional training on data collection, including how to use Kobo Toolbox for both surveying and photo documentation, the researchers then practiced the survey among themselves and piloted the tool among an initial 15 households. The U.S.-based team reviewed the results for quality purposes.

To ensure a comprehensive sample, the SIKAP team’s goal was to survey almost all households within their immediate surroundings (about 300 households). However, as awareness spread, households beyond the initial sample expressed interest in participating. The local team, happy about the interest shown by their fellow community members, expanded the sample to around 400 households.

4. PSBA

PSBA, located in Cordon, Isabela Province, embarked on a parallel journey to confront their community’s sanitation concerns. Acknowledging sanitation as a critical issue, they also conducted an analysis and initiated a community-led sanitation loan project in 2023. PSBA supported the construction of 59 new toilets and upgraded 18 existing systems, reinforcing safer and sanitary conditions for their primary women members. Inspired by the success of SIKAP’s participatory research, an inquiry arose about PSBA’s interest in a similar endeavor in their community. Responding affirmatively, 10 women volunteered to collaborate. Using the same survey employed by SIKAP, the PSBA team underwent training sessions to familiarize themselves with the survey tool, practicing it among themselves. Leveraging Kobo Toolbox for data collection and management, they deployed the survey, covering all 328 households within their community.

Notably, both SIKAP and PSBA have been conducting community-led monitoring and evaluation activities following OPI capacity-strengthening programming. Therefore, the transition from participating in the community-led evaluation, including using applications like Kobo Toolbox, to the WASH research went smoothly.

The WASH scholars played a crucial role in supporting these communities in the data analysis process. After obtaining the evaluation results, SIKAP and PSBA validated the data with their fellow community members and local authorities. Significantly, this initiative has not only equipped the local groups with valuable information about their sanitation projects but has also provided them with a profound understanding of the WASH conditions within their communities. The findings have allowed these groups to identify deficiencies in their sanitation projects, notably the absence of access points for their latrines. In response, since the completion of this participatory evaluation, these community-based organizations have embarked on initiatives to encourage their members to upgrade their tanks, ensuring the incorporation of access points for future emptying purposes.

5. Finding and Discussions

Scholars and practitioners who are advocating for alternatives to mainstream evaluation and research argue that such alternatives hold potential beyond just gaining empirical evidence on project and program successes. They can be transformative, emancipatory, democratic, and empowering. But what do those participating in collaborative evaluation and research initiatives think about such activities, particularly those stakeholders typically excluded from such activities? Elvis and Beng used these questions as guide questions to organize and then facilitate two reflection sessions. Because we followed a constructivist and exploratory design, we used a data collection approach that would allow for open dialogue and discussion. In this case, reflection sessions with open-ended guide questions felt most appropriate. Elvis and Beng invited the leaders of SIKAP and PSBA (27 women leaders, which were all the women who participated directly in the research initiative) to participate in these sessions so that we could learn more about their experiences and challenges and to what extent they found the research and emerging data relevant. These conversations lasted about two hours. The leaders, Elvis, and Beng documented the women’s consent and recorded their reflections (about 10 minutes of edited video recordings). We then conducted a thematic analysis, coding the reflections and then collapsing these codes into categories and, eventually, broader themes. These include Strengthening Capacity, Knowing the Situation Better, Using the Data, Discovering the Self, and Fostering Trust and Community Cohesion.

6. Strengthening Capacity

One of the most prominent themes from the women’s reflections is how their involvement in the research strengthened their capacity. The first area pertains to using digital technology. Using data management platforms like Kobo Toolbox marks a notable change from using pen and paper. In 2020, OPI’s practitioners started to introduce communities to Kobo Toolbox as part of its community-led monitoring and evaluation programming. Members were trained in its usage, particularly for monitoring and evaluating their water, food, and sanitation projects. The training actively involved community leaders and members (Sorcher et al., 2022). Strengthening the capacity of leaders from marginalized communities to use technology for their development demonstrates an effort toward digital inclusion.

Leaders also shared how the initiative increased their research capacity. As one leader said, “I gained new knowledge, especially in formulating questions to gather sufficient and accurate data” (Leader 2). A significant aspect of this collaborative research initiative was involving community members in formulating the overarching research and survey questions and collecting data with the support of the WASH researchers and OPI team. This inclusiveness deviates from traditional top-down evaluation and research practices. Instead, it reinforces the exercise of local self-determination (Lowe & Wilson, 2017) and values the community’s knowledge and agency. Additionally, this method serves as an empowering act of evaluation, where experts willingly share their knowledge and expertise with the community to “upskill and empower rather than keeping their knowledge to themselves and taking the data with them when they leave” (Cheek, 2007; Smith, 2012, as cited in Kelly, 2021, p.617). This enables the community to develop evaluation skills (Kelly, 2021) and ensures sustainability as the community retains these skills even after the experts depart.

7. Using the Data

Community-led and participatory evaluation ensures that the results actively contribute to the continuous efforts and progress of the communities, aiding them in addressing their identified issues and aspirations. Over the past five years, PSBA and SIKAP leaders have been addressing their identified poverty issues, including sanitation concerns, leading to the initiation of projects involving the construction of latrines and water pumps. The reflections of three different leaders underscore the future tangible impact of their research data on activities related to resolving sanitation issues and enhancing the effectiveness of their sanitation projects. They shared that, “We can use the data in our next mobilizations” (Leader 1) and that they will “use [the] gathered data as a basis for writing project proposals and request letters to resolve [their] discovered sanitation issues (Leader 3).” The president of one of the groups reflected that they “plan to use the data obtained from the research as a basis for creating the next plan to address issues related to water, sanitation, and health” (Leader 2).

Community-owned ownership means ownership not only over the tangible components of development initiatives and the process, but also the associated data of such processes and initiatives. The leaders’ reflections underscore how they are perceiving such ownership, something crucial to ensure meaningful community development (Levine and Griñó 2015). They are realizing their rights and freedom to use their data for their own communities’ benefits in ways that align with their capacities and goals. Such an approach nurtures community ownership — a vital marker of community empowerment — and ensures the data’s relevance to individuals affected by poverty issues and project participants. This extends to their ongoing community-led initiatives, thereby increasing the likelihood of ongoing data utilization to resolve their felt poverty issues.

8. Knowing the Situation Better

As community members actively engaged in the research, they underwent a profound realization of their community’s challenges and circumstances. This involvement led to heightened awareness regarding the prevalent sanitation and health issues affecting their locality. As articulated by the leaders:

Because of this research, I understand better the situation of our community (Leader 2).

We have learned that the problem regarding water, sanitation, and health is still extensive [in our community] (SIKAP leaders).

Furthermore, the leaders also realized that sanitation issues still affect many households within their respective communities. As they shared:

We learned not only about ourselves but also about our community. During our data collection, I observed that many [of us] struggle to build proper toilets, and some are still unable to have their own. Regarding access to clean water, most households don’t have their wells; there’s only a communal well, and fetching water becomes a challenge to adequately meet the clean water needs (Leader 4).

Active participation in the research allows community members to immerse themselves even deeper into their communities’ contexts and environment. This immersive approach exposes them to their communities’ WASH challenges and increases their awareness of the magnitude and breadth of such challenges. Furthermore, integrating research activities with experiential learning has deepened their understanding of community realities and strengthened their dedication to sustaining community development activities (Coughlin et al. 2017; Kolb 2014).

9. Discovering the Self

Participatory research and evaluation activities can transform community members’ sense of self, specifically women. Evidence of such a transformation emerged during the women’s reflections. As one of the woman leaders articulated, her engagement in this evaluation activity made her realize something about herself and her co-leaders.

As a researcher, I learned that I can indeed be a researcher. Previously, I thought the term “researcher” was reserved for those with higher education, for professionals. It turns out that even someone like me, a high school graduate, can become a researcher. All that’s needed is an interest in learning and participating in activities like this. I believe my colleagues feel the same way (Leader 5).

Empowering individuals involves providing opportunities for learning and applying acquired knowledge into practical action. By providing such opportunities, community leaders can also start to recognize their own ability, efficacy, and agency. Affording them the chance to assert their right to play a pivotal role in their personal and community development is what truly empowers a community leader (Lejarde, 2023). Furthermore, Nawaz (2013) contends that “empowerment is something that has to be realized by the self” (p. 29) and that a woman can only empower herself as soon as she develops “strong feelings about herself” (p.29). The women leaders in the case study affirmed that they have learned something about themselves and their communities and manifested commitment through collective and continuous actions. Therefore, the participatory approach to evaluation, where the participants assume active roles and tasks, can provide transformative experiences that can empower the people.

10. Fostering Trust and Community Cohesion

Trust is paramount in eliciting authentic and accurate data from community members. In contrast to external enumerators and researchers, the internal researchers, or in this case the community leaders, have already established positive reputations in their community from past development activities. Their familiarity breaks the ice during data collection. It encourages people to be more open and transparent when conveying data to internal evaluators, resulting in more relevant and reliable evaluation results. As affirmed by these leaders:

We saw the trust of the majority of Bimmangon residents in us; I know that they need assistance to [resolve] their sanitation [issues] (Leader 6).

Since the SIKAP Association is already known in our community, residents’ participation in future research will likely be more accessible (Leader 2).

Participatory research and evaluation facilitate interaction among community members, thereby enhancing engagement in development activities. Leaders’ reflections also revealed such interaction. As one leader shared, “One of the things I appreciated from this research is the opportunity to interact with the residents in our community, especially those I haven’t met before” (Leader 1).

Participating in the WASH research activity also enables the SIKAP and PSBA leaders to develop shared values and goals, particularly sustaining their collective actions to address poverty issues. Fortified by experiential learning and capacity building, most leaders expressed their commitment to continuing efforts to resolve their sanitation issues.

We discovered that the issues concerning water, sanitation, and health are more extensive than initially thought. Thus, we are still planning to take further action on this matter (SIKAP leaders).

The entire PSBA organization will continue to work collectively to address our felt issues here in our community, especially those problems related to cleanliness, water, and sanitation, not only for our organization but also for future generations (Leader 5).

Participatory research and evaluation fosters community cohesion by creating opportunities for members to interact, garner support in evaluation activities, and actively contribute to development goals. Such interaction was also present in the work of SPPC et al. (2024) and their community-led monitoring and evaluation activities. Consistent engagement in these participatory evaluations within the community can elevate trust, cooperation, and a sense of belonging among members, thereby promoting and strengthening community cohesion.

11. Conclusion

An emphasis on alternative forms of evaluation and research is timely because it closely aligns with global trends to decolonize aid, methodologies, and practice. Similarly, the push within the development sector toward localization and local ownership is rippling through the full sector with organizations, practitioners, and evaluators curious about how, where, and when they can adjust their methodologies. And as Levine and Griñó (2015) argue, this push toward local ownership should be visible throughout the full program cycle, with monitoring and evaluation practices being no exception. The local researchers and their experiences featured in this case study not only exemplify the ownership Levine and Griñó are arguing for, but it also evidences how such inclusion can have a more profound impact on local researchers than just knowing more about the success and impact of interventions. As the women’s reflections confirm, participating in understanding and learning more about their communities and interventions transformed their minds about what their own capacities are about research and evaluation. Their reflections actively break down perceptions around who researchers are, because as the women have experienced, they too can evaluate, research, and discover more about their communities. After all, it is their communities, their neighbors and their challenges. By sharing our findings, we are encouraging practitioners and implementing organizations to take seriously the value of community-led and owned monitoring, evaluation, and learning and consider including it in their work.

By sharing this case study, we aimed to add to a growing body of case studies confirming the value of community-owned and led research and evaluation. One example of such work includes SPPC et al. (2024), featuring the work of another Philippines-based community group and their efforts to monitor and evaluate their newly implemented water system. Additionally, with this case study, we wanted to add the experiences of those directly involved in such research – in this case, the women from SIKAP and PSBA – to document the transformative contribution of collaborative and participatory evaluation and research practices. Too often, practitioners and researchers hope that their practices yield transformative results. Still, too frequently, they fall short of including local experiences in their follow-up reflections on how things went. Through this case study, we wanted to address this shortcoming by asking the local researchers from SIKAP and PSBA directly what it was like to be integral stakeholders and participants in research of and about their communities.

Our case study is not without limitations. First, it captures the perceptions of only the leaders directly involved in the research. However, the experiences of the actual research participants are not included here, i.e. those who responded to the surveys, the U.S-based WASH researchers and the practitioners supporting the leaders in their broader community-level activities. Knowing what these other actors think about locally-led research and evaluation can deepen the conversation about why and how the sector should incorporate community-based and owned monitoring and evaluation into their practices. For example, it would be interesting to learn more from the survey participants about what it felt like to be surveyed by their fellow community leaders instead of external enumerators. By adding their voices to the analysis, our case study would have shed a broader and more representative light on the value of inclusive and community-led monitoring, evaluation and research. Future research into the locally perceived value of community-led research should, therefore, pay close attention to including a diverse set of voices.

A second limitation pertains to the collection of the leaders’ perceptions. Due to time limitations on both the authors’ and local community leaders’ side, we collected only one set of reflections, which we then used for our analysis. A second round of conversations following our analysis would have allowed us to expand on the themes yielded during the first round, which, in turn, could have added additional depth to our findings and discussion. Planning for enough time, or considering dynamic data collection practices can therefore strengthen any future research on how local stakeholders perceive community-led monitoring, evaluation, and research.

A final limitation pertains to the context-specific nature of our case study. In this case, the perceptions featured here are specific to individuals who participated in the community-led interventions of Outreach Philippines Incorporated (OPI), their sanitation projects, and who live in the Philippines. While the findings and suggestions made in this case study are contextually specific, the goal of sharing such findings is to encourage practitioners and researchers further to broaden the collection of case studies on transformative evaluation to eventually allow for broader systematic reviews and meta-analyses and, therefore, generalizations on the impact of community-led and owned monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

• Recommendations

Through this case study, and by exemplifying the experiences of SIKAP and PSBA leaders in the rural Philippines, we hope to inspire practitioners and implementing organizations to consider and explore community-led and owned monitoring, evaluation, and learning. If they are committed to an agenda of transformation, localization, and shifting the power, one sure place to start is activating local ownership over program and project data. To ensure rich learning outcomes about implementing community-led monitoring, evaluation, and research, our recommendations to implementing organizations are to

1. Simply begin. Often, the status quo and that which is familiar feels safer and easier. But without starting, practitioners and their local community partners will never truly gain the experience of leading their own research activities.
2. Include and continue to include all stakeholders in all decision-making processes.
3. Make sure all stakeholders are clear on the rationale of the research. Such clarity will ensure local buy-in and strengthen ownership of the process and activities.
4. Guard against complicated and self-serving research goals and objectives. All should align with stakeholders’ needs and intentions.
5. Facilitate ongoing check-ins with all stakeholders. Not only will this allow opportunities for all researchers to reflect on their activities, but also moments of course-correction. Check-in moments can also include data analysis to consider data quality and, if needed, include the actions needed to address quality concerns.

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[1] Outreach International

[2] Outreach Philippines, Inc.

[3] Outreach Philippines, Inc.

[4] Outreach Philippines, Inc.

^[5] The Shift the Power Movement started in 2016 following the #Shiftthepower social media hashtag shared by The Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF) and their intentions of moving the Global Community away from “top-heavy and top-down systems of international development and philanthropy”  toward more equitable people centered development (Global Fund for Community Foundations, n.d.)