COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN MONITORING AND EVALUATION: Experience, Application and Adoption of Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation

HIV/AIDS which has been a pandemic in the last two and half decades has claimed many lives. It has left many widows, widowers and orphaned children. These are further complicated by the fact that AIDS has neither preventive vaccine nor curative medicine. This study set out to examine the experience, application and adoption of participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) by The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) Mulago branch in Kampala. Its specific objectives included examining TASO's knowledge, perception and challenges of adapting PM&E, exploring how TASO was involving the community, examining the resources of the community to conduct and contribute to M&E exercise and documenting TASO's experience on PM&E. This research was expected to generate knowledge for administrators, health professionals, researchers and academicians on community involvement in M&E in HIV/AIDS programmes. Such information would be used for quality enhancement, and make the M&E activity more realistic, adaptive, cost-effective and sustainable.

Yonathan Fikre Hailemeskel has wide work experience in social development and has worked in Ethiopia, Norway and Uganda. He has travelled extensively in Africa, and considerably in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Yonathan Fikre is currently with FREDSKORPSET as Senior Program Officer for Africa.