ADAPTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT Community Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for REDD

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5.3 ADAPTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

A fundamental requirement when working with new methodologies and challenging socio-political environments is to have an adaptive management model that allows lexibility and improved decision making. Evaluating project impacts with different stakeholders provided opportunities for each group to contribute to the adaptive management of the project. The insights and recommendations on this topic were extrapolated to inform the planning of the second phase of the project, and in reviewing and clarifying roles and responsibilities to address key challenges identiied. These insights and recommendations are below. • A consistent low of information about project aims, activities and monitoring results to community members, especially to interviewees, should be undertaken by the CREW through public meetings. • Regular outreach activities by the PMT using comprehensible, creative and locally appropriate formats can also play an important role in maximising communication efforts. • Additional training will be required to ensure monitors are able to clearly explain the project objectives, monitoring activities and rationale to community members. • Local participation is fundamental at all stages of the project - from implementation and recruitment to data management – in order to guarantee transparency and ownership. • A clear data sharing protocol needs to be established early on, requires time and should be reviewed regularly. • The extent to which data processing can be undertaken by community members depends on existing local capacity, the type of software and technology adopted, and local infrastructure. • Skills and infrastructure assessments, as well as ield tests, are critical in assessing technology options and selecting the most appropriate technology. • Developing monitoring methodologies requires carefully considering how data will be processed, reported and applied so that the resulting information is relevant and useful. • Interview fatigue can be reduced by improving the design of data collection forms. 40

6.1 SCALING COMMUNITY-BASED MONITORING