How will we use SALT in our Monitoring and Evaluation work?

[Meresiana Tatila Varani]

The Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), Delhi offers a three-months M&E course annually for foreign students. Currently, there are about 25 students from 16 countries currently undergoing the course, and I am one of them.  Rituu B Nanda conducted a session on community life competence during this course. At the end of the session the participants came together in groups to discuss how will they use SALT in their work. Here are the presentations from these groups:

 

Roseline (Liberia), Ambrose (Lesotho), Mark (Liberia), Ujong (Nigeria)

(will use in community based project)

S- Engage the community, sharing ideas and stories, telling some past stories

a)     What are they proud of? Their present living conditions, community happiness

b)     Ask them of their vision and dream; their expectations

c)      What will they do to achieve their dreams

d)     Assess their strength, their capability

A  Appreciate what have done previously, maybe what they are doing in the present

L- participatory learning and action where everybody’s view is taken into consideration

T-  Transfer what we learned to other communities and also apply learning in other situations

Team- we will work as a team and encourage the community to form teams; prosper thy neighbor, technique for motivation

 

Fatima, Meresiana, Francis, Temesgen

S Discuss with ministries, project directors, what they have done especially what has been done well

A appreciate and constant feedback of performance

L-  learnings apply in next quarter/similar project, listen to obstacles, problems, strengths and referral to relevant agency

T- Apply best practice- monitoring officers come back from monitoring give their observation on how a ministry has improved any process and that is shared in the office group who will share with other ministries

Human relations works within the ministry/org

Distribution of reports

 

Hodjo (Togo), Chandra (Bhutan), Leonard (Madagascar),  Ariful (Bangladesh)

(Minisitry of fishery and livestock)

Share: Assessment of good practices and achievements in the past

Appreciation: look at how production has increased?

Listen, learn and link: deduction from best practices and past success, examples for new ideas ( for eg cross breed and cage culture fish, based on the community instead of benchmark

Transfer and team: spreading at scale of best practices and ideas for giving self confidence and economic benefits of the communities

Josephat Ogar (Nigeria), Nachilima Namuala (Zambia), Jasmina Simic (Serbia), Melaia Kubuabola (Fiji)

Share – personal experiences or others through story telling, narration, pictures, posters, music video

Stimulate- going in with an open mind, introduce yourself briefly, briefly explain personal experience or through posters

Appreciation- acknowledge them for time, commend them for effort

Listen, learn, link- Speak less, listen more.  Learn from them. Link them to a source government agency or any other network

Transfer and team- participation, feedback and utilization of information,  information gathered to be used for review and improvement, form groups in the community and share about SALT

 

 

Hery, Aloyce, Mathias, Nicholas, Frank

(Use in educational settings)

Will help understand the challenges in our community

Action plans (build on individual daily work plans)

Data collection

Research- to identify some issues that were not identified during the data collection which will be used to transfer knowledge in the next programme

Evaluation

Team bonding in the place of work

SALT we believe can be used alongside SWOT and PRA/PLA

 

Ziadeh, Seetababu, Kinley Dorji and Sheyani Ram

( in livelihood project)

Share their experiences on livelihoods; currently communities are only asked the questions which the evaluators want; they don’t share their experiences to get a true picture of their needs

Come to an understanding of their current status (through appreciation)

Identify their skills

Develop their linkage for livelihood development through line departments

Self assessment by the groups for monitoring and evaluation