Methodological Issues in the Evaluation of International Community Participation Projects

International donor agencies and governments of developing countries are seeking ways to increase the involvement of project beneficiaries in the design and management of development projects. However, very little systematic evidence is available on the potential costs and benefits of community participation (CP). The evaluation of CP is complicated by a division between advocates of efficiency and empowerment objectives. Achieving consensus on evaluation strategies is further complicated by the close association between empowerment objectives and qualitative evaluation methods on the one hand and efficiency objectives and quantitative evaluation methods on the other. A number of methodological issues are discussed with respect to the application of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, case studies and participant observation in the evaluation of CP. A number of gender issues which affect the evaluation design also are discussed. The final section proposes a research agenda to improve our understanding of the potential contributions of community participation to the design, implementation and sustainability of development projects. An earlier version of this paper (1988b) was presented at an American Evaluation Association annual meeting. The author is a senior sociologist at the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank.