Evaluating a participatory approach ; Évaluer une démarche participative
National audience ; How many people participated in the participatory process? Were the participants representative of the territory's population? Were all participants able to express themselves? What did they learn from their participation? Did the participatory approach lead to better water or land management? Did it lead participants to change their practices and consume resources in a more responsible and sustainable way? These questions are almost always asked by the actors involved in a participatory process, especially those who lead the process. These are questions that can be answered by monitoring and evaluating the participatory process, its context and its effects. This article seeks to reverse the dominant view of monitoring-evaluation as a cumbersome and complex protocol to implement. The article provides guidelines for setting up a useful monitoring-evaluation of participation, one that answers the questions that the various actors ask themselves, while remaining open to the surprises and unexpected effects that any participatory approach can generate. Three main aspects are addressed: the evaluation of the demographic characteristics of the participants, the monitoring and evaluation of the process and the evaluation of the impacts of the process. The article also addresses the questions of when to evaluate and who evaluates, and makes the link between monitoring and evaluation and participation charters and guarantors. ; Combien de personnes ont participé à la démarche participative ? Les participants étaient-ils représentatifs de la population du territoire ? Tous les participants ont-ils pu s'exprimer ? Qu'ont-ils appris suite à leur participation ? La démarche participative a-t-elle permis une meilleure gestion de l'eau ou du territoire ? A-t-elle amené les participants à changer leurs pratiques et à consommer les ressources de manière plus responsable et durable ? Ces questions sont presque toujours posées par les acteurs impliqués dans une démarche participative, notamment ceux qui ...