Can Participatory Evaluation Meet the Needs of all Stakeholders? Evaluating the World Neighbors’ West Africa Program

A manual the author wrote in the early 1980s encouraged leaders of rural community development programs to do their own participatory self-evaluation (for reference see biography at the end of this article). The methodology promoted by that manual has been successfully used by many programs around the world. But the question gets asked: Can such participatory evaluation methods be used when conducting major program evaluations? And, if so, can the needs and expectations of all stakeholders be met, including agency headquarters, board of directors, and donors?