Participatory monitoring, evaluation, reflection and learning for community-based adaptation manual

This manual from Care International, provides detailed guidance on the use of a Monitoring, Evaluation, Reflection & Learning (MERL) tool  primarily intended to support adaptive decision-making in communities vulnerable to climate change.

The manual provides a system to:

• "Develop participatory monitoring, evaluation, learning and reflection strategies to help stakeholders  assess Community-based Adaptation so that practices can improve over time. 
• Guide the development of locally specific, community-based indicators for local adaptation, for project planners to assess whether CBA projects are effective in the context of longer-term adaptive processes. 
• Monitor changing contexts of vulnerability to inform Community-based Adaptation planning.
• Help ensure mutual accountability of and to stakeholders, managers and donors by demonstrating to what extent project objectives have been met, and whether the objectives remain the right ones."

Tools

• Guidance on selecting tools 57
• Tool 1: Shared learning dialogues 58
• Tool 2: Service provider analysis 59
• Tool 3: Adaptation visioning for  self-monitoring and evaluation 60
• Tool 4: Envisioning future climate scenarios  and impacts of climate change 62
• Tool 5: Mapping behavioural change journals 64
• Tool 6: Mapping 66
• Tool 7: Visual documentation for PMERL 68
• Tool 8: Access, use and control  70
• Tool 9: Most Significant Change 72
• Tool 10: EXSECO, an interview tool 74
• Tool 11: Hazard and response force-field analysis 76
• Tool 12: Trend analysis through time-lines  and seasonal calendars 78
• Tool 13: Rain calendars: A tool for  understanding changing rainfall  patterns and effects on livelihoods 82
• Tool 14: Quarterly Reflection Meeting Guide 83

This resource was suggested to BetterEvaluation by Aarjan Dixit, CARE International, Nepal.