Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (pm&e) with Pastoralists: a Review of Experiences and Annotated Bibliography Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (pm&e) with Pastoralists: a Review of Experiences and Annotated Bibliography Table of Contents

iii FOREWORD For decades, agencies of development cooperation (DC) have been working in the drylands of developing and transition countries. These regions are an immense challenge for technical cooperation because of their high climatic variability, their susceptibility to desertification and their economic and political sensitivity, including their potential for social and resource-based conflict. The important insights gained from cooperation with pastoralists include the central role of resource-use rights, the importance of indigenous knowledge and cooperation with traditional institutions, the necessity for a flexible approach, and especially the role of participation as a fundamental conceptual and practical element of cooperation. On the basis of this assessment, the GTZ commissioned already in 1994 a study on experiences gained in participatory planning with pastoralists. This resulted in the document Planning with pastoralists: PRA and more – a review of methods focused on Africa. A French version (Planification avec des pasteurs: MARP et au-delà – un compte rendu de méthodes centré sur l'Afrique) appeared in 1995. This overview and analysis of approaches and methods was received with great interest far beyond the circle of those concerned only with pastoralism. Today, eight years after its publication, the document is still being requested. During that review, it became clear that there were few experiences documented with respect to a very important element of participation: the observation and evaluation of project activities and resource management by the target group, i.e. participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E). To what extent is this instrument employed in DC with pasto-ralists? What are the main successes and best practices? Where do the main difficulties lie? What can the experiences teach us? PM&E is a topic important for DC as a whole, particularly in the realm of natural resource management, because it embraces questions of impact and sustainability. When pastoralists are involved in PM&E, the opportunities for learning are especially large, because cooperation with these groups of resource users is particularly challenging, given their mobility and their – in most cases – social exclusion and political and economic marginalisation. Does PM&E have a special significance here because of this situation? Is PM&E even possible in such settings? iv The present document was prepared with a view to finding some answers to these questions. It is based on a review of published and " grey " literature , communication with persons and institutions cooperating with pas-toralists and the field experiences of the authors, particularly …