Using Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Assessing the Impact of Extension Programmes: An Empirical Study in the Context of Joint Forest Management

Agricultural extension has often been conceptualised to embrace a broadened mandate that goes beyond transferring technologies and facilitating agricultural development. International organisations have started to shift from ‘agricultural’ to ‘rural’ focus in their programmes and Extension’s success in future may not be judged in terms of technology transfer or agricultural development alone. Naturally, the scope of evaluating extension programmes will also have to be broadened for justifying the government expenditure and to enliven its prospect as livelihood promotion agency. Sustainable Livelihoods Framework provides excellent scope to capture the multifaceted impact of development programmes on clients’ livelihoods in terms of increase in their asset base and decrease in vulnerabilities. The present study describes the development of an impact monitoring tool for Joint Forest Management (JFM) in selected villages of Ayodhya Hills, Purulia district, West Bengal and describes its field testing. The development of the tool followed a simple indicator-based multi-stakeholder approach taking SL framework as a reference. This was followed by the development of a ‘perception analysis tool’, using recall data. The field testing of the tool successfully captured the impact of JFM on peoples’ assets and vulnerabilities and discriminated successful Forest Protection Committee from the less successful one.