The "Got'Em" Mentality behind Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

As I become more engrossed in participatory methods for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and the benefits that the process can have for both implementing partners, donors, and beneficiaries, I reflect on the current use of M&E as a tool for scrutiny and blaming. This story from a blogger's recent experience conducting an evaluation of a "problematic" activity (Got'Em: An Evaluation Story) should ring true for many M&E practitioners. I encourage you to read the story and reflect on how you use M&E on projects: Is it to help find areas that need improvement and to work with the project to yield better results in an encouraging manner, or are you only interested in results and efficiencies? Lesson learned that if we look at the impacts of a program by using a scientific, and predominately Western approach, we miss important contextual factors. 

“...when you’re looking for what’s wrong, you’re certainly going find it.”

— Jennifer Lentfer

Carbon-Cutting Initiative May Harm Indigenous Communities

There was a recent dialogue hosted here in Washington D.C. (held on March 19th) by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) following Following the Warsaw Agreement on REDD+. The discourse emphasized increased impacts that this agreement will have on indigenous peoples and priority steps needed towards safeguarding their rights. This was an eyeopening event for me as carbon conflict has become a fiery debate as of late, in the conservation and energy sectors. The RRI presented new research in this forum, highlighting the lack of legal protection and safeguards for indigenous communities living in forests.

“As the carbon in living trees becomes another marketable commodity, the deck is loaded against forest peoples and presents an opening for an unprecedented carbon grab by governments and investors,” said Arvind Khare, RRI’s executive director.

REDD+ promoted by the World Bank and UN, provides a series of financial incentives and rewards for developing countries to reduce their carbon emissions resulting from deforestation; is in fact diminishing indigenous peoples rights since the initiative does not directly link land carbon rights with land tenure rights. 

The argument also brought to light impacts from REDD+ that may be contributing to deforestation and that its lack of progress on emissions reduction and the restrictions it imposes on the rights of indigenous forest peoples to use their land are evidence of the initiatives failure.

How can you envision REDD+ being a more viable alternative that creates incentives for the bottom as well as the top? Is the program salvageable if it becomes more socially inclusive and accepting of techniques (i.e., swidden agriculture) that has been scientifically proven to enrich forest ecosystems, when carried out under the right conditions?