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Participatory evaluation methodologies are considered to produce many positive and empowering impacts. However, given the complex power, knowledge and discursive issues involved and other factors, use of these methodologies can have contradictory effects. This article presents results from the implementation of a process that aimed to build the capacities of people in two Australian rural communities to evaluate their local communication and information technology (C&IT) initiatives. The 'LEARNERS' process used participatory action research and participatory evaluation methods, and took an inclusive 'whole of community' approach. The process aimed to enhance community development and to facilitate community empowerment, participation and leadership, particularly for women. Rigorous analysis of the impacts of the project found that it was effective in producing various degrees of social, technological, political and psychological empowerment. However, some corresponding disempowering impacts were also identified. The strengths and limitations of this evaluation capacity-building process and the lessons learned are considered.

1. Introduction -- 2. Framework for evaluating communication for development -- 3. New thinking and trends -- 4. Challenges, issues and strategies -- 5. Evaluation capacity development -- 6. Key approaches, methodologies and methods -- 7. Conclusion and implementation.

A more complex and unstable development context and major shifts in development theory and practice over the past 20 years have created major challenges for evaluation. There remains a vast gap between the theory and practice of development evaluation that needs to be resolved. This indicates a vital need to bridge the divide between dominant results-based, upward accountability evaluation approaches and emergent learning, participatory and complexity-based approaches to more effectively achieve development goals. In this article we explore this divide and contrast these approaches, highlighting some of the key challenges that each face. Drawing on our recent research, we identify key challenges, tensions and contradictions in evaluating communication for development (C4D) that need to be better understood and addressed. We outline a new conceptual framework for evaluating C4D and other complex development initiatives as a strategy to address these challenges. We argue that achieving change requires reconceptualising accountability and learning, developing evaluation capacities that enable learning and multiple forms of accountability, and drawing on local knowledge, ideas and innovation to develop and implement more appropriate and effective evaluation approaches. These strategies can create an enabling environment in which these new ideas and approaches can flourish and complex development issues can be better addressed.

Over the past decade, empowerment evaluation has demonstrated its worth as a practical and valuable alternative to traditional program evaluation methodologies. Following a brief overview of the development of empowerment evaluation, we outline its 10 underlying principles and the three key steps involved in conducting an empowerment evaluation. A preliminary case study on our use of this methodology to evaluate the Good Start Breakfast Club program is presented. The Australian Red Cross operates this program in nearly 100 primary schools around Australia with sponsorship and support from the Sanitarium Health Food Company and other organisations. This case study highlights the potential effectiveness of empowerment evaluation in improving and assessing the impacts of other public health and community-based programs in Australia and some of the lessons we have learned so far from using this methodology. We identify strengths and limitations of empowerment evaluation and argue that a more critical approach is required to avoid the idealism that tends to underpin this approach. We suggest that greater attention needs to be paid to the communicative and relational dimensions of empowerment evaluation in order to increase its effectiveness.

This paper examines the politics of change and the politics of identity evident in the recent history of Australian rural women's organizations, including the blurring of the categories 'farm women' and 'rural women.' Drawing on various sources, including our own current research, we identify several different ways in which rural women's identities are being constructed in feminist scholarship, in rural women's own (various) discourses and in the mass media. Rural women's diverse activities and identities are seen to cross boundaries. Contradictions and paradoxes inherent in these constructions and their implications for the politics of gendered social change are discussed. We argue that while a less urban‐centred approach to feminist theory is needed, rural women would benefit from a greater understanding of feminism. Online conversations involving rural and urban women are seen as a useful means of developing such new understandings.

Women's empowerment is a central aim of feminist action research. However, due to the many contradictory discourses of empowerment, it has become a contested concept. Drawing on poststructuralist theories of power-knowledge, discourse and subjectivity, this article critically analyses the discourses identified in an Australian feminist action research project involving rural women, academics and industry partners. This project aimed to empower women to discuss and use interactive communication technologies (ICTs). This analysis highlights the contradictory effects of the egalitarian and expert discourses that were identified, and the multiple, often conflicting, subject positions that were taken up by the researchers and participants. Our analysis suggests that discourses of empowerment and disempowerment intersect and interpenetrate one another, and highlights some of the dangers and contradictions associated with feminist participatory action research. We argue that a poststructuralist approach to analysis and critical reflexivity can lessen the `impossible burden' on academic feminists engaged in emancipatory research.

There is growing pressure on development organizations to improve their evaluation systems and capacities. This presents considerable challenges for time- and resource-poor organizations in developing countries. Evaluation capacity development (ECD) approaches are needed that are appropriate and effective for such organizations. We argue that this requires a long-term, holistic, participatory, learning-centred approach that aims to develop learning organizations and build the capacity of whole organizations and their stakeholders. It also needs to incorporate local knowledge and ideas and ongoing meta-evaluation of ECD activities. We describe this approach and how it was applied in a four-year action research project with a non-governmental organization in Nepal. Drawing on findings from this project and various follow up activities, we suggest some principles and strategies for designing and implementing an effective and sustainable approach to ECD that can help to address the many challenges and issues we have identified.

From the participatory action research we have conducted in two rural communities in Australia we suggest six factors that assist in achieving sustainability for ICT initiatives undertaken in pursuit of regional development. They include: Clearly specified sustainability goals; Leveraging micro-business enterprise development off government funded technical and human infrastructure provision, and using local industry strengths; Learning from global experiences whilst building on local assets; Finding innovative business models to capitalise on new opportunities for content and applications; Ensuring community involvement in deciding, planning and evaluating projects; and Adopting a learning approach.