Applying MEV-CAM Tools: Participatory Video

"South-South cooperation (SSC) for sharing knowledge is important to scaling up good practices; simply creating and accumulating more knowledge does not necessarily translate into good practices; and the knowledge generated is often underexploited".

This participatory video (PV) toolkit is designed to offer a step-by-step approach to planning and implementing PV for knowledge sharing, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and advocacy, applicable to both ongoing and new projects. PV is a process that seeks to empower communities to utilise visual media to document and share best practices by collecting knowledge and illustrating changes in their landscapes. It challenges conventional project monitoring methods that rely on extensive written reports, which often neglect community perspectives and experiences.

The toolkit was developed for the Making Every Voice Count for Adaptive Management (MEV-CAM) initiative, which was launched in 2020 by the Dryland Forestry and the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Divisions of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The project seeks to change the way South-South knowledge management is approached by using local and Indigenous expertise to restore degraded drylands through the adoption of more sustainable practices. Operating across 18 countries and three regions, MEV-CAM utilises process documentation and PV to engage and empower communities to document and take ownership of best practices for landscape restoration and natural resource management.

This PV toolkit is intended for facilitators and outlines facilitation tools and exercises, dissemination practices, and lessons learned for planning and delivering PV processes for knowledge generation, monitoring and sharing. As explained in the guide, "PV is a process documentation tool that involves a group or community in shaping and creating its own video to identify lessons learned, collect knowledge and define change (Lunch and Lunch, 2006). Although PV is a visual tool, it emphasizes process over product: the process is what encourages participants to take collective action and control over their lives. The videos created through the PV process are not the final purpose when focusing on community-led knowledge sharing, participatory M&E and advocacy: the process should be considered a programmatic intervention rather than a communications intervention. PV processes use creative, accessible and empowering games and exercises to enable people to critically analyse issues in their lives, tell their own stories, share their local knowledge and learn technical aspects of filmmaking that puts them in control of how they are represented. Participants also determine the audience and how videos will be disseminated, enabling them to initiate dynamic and transformative dialogues with decision makers and peers alike."

The practical guide explores the use of PV methodologies for knowledge management, M&E, and advocacy throughout the life cycle of a project in three sections:

How to use participatory video for knowledge documentation
PV can be used as a documentation and knowledge management tool at different stages of the project cycle. At the beginning of a project cycle, it can be used to generate knowledge by documenting current conditions, issues, and practices; throughout the life of the project, every step should be documented to monitor change and emerging practices of communities practicing landscape restoration and natural resource management. The section details three key exercises that can be embedded in a PV process for knowledge management:
 

• The Margolis Wheel: a participatory learning and action (PLA) tool that can be used in a PV process to identify topics and dig deeper into participants' perspectives and understanding.
• Role play: a tool that can be used within a PV process to share a best practice with neighbouring communities or communities within similar landscapes. 
   
• River of Life: another PLA tool that can be used to chart a story over time depicting enablers or blockers of change.

How to use participatory video for monitoring and evaluation
Participatory video for most significant change (PVMSC) is an approach that allows community members, practitioners, and decision-makers to work together to document the impact at scale that a project has on its intended beneficiaries. In utilising specific exercises and tools that demonstrate to stakeholders that their voices are significant, this approach hands over the ownership of the project to local communities, allowing project staff to understand the true effect their work has on practitioners. PVMSC can be utilised at each stage of the project cycle for ongoing monitoring, as well as midline and endline evaluations.

How to use participatory video tool for advocacy
PV for advocacy can be used to inspire and engage by encouraging communities to strategically document their messages to influence decision-makers in a creative and participatory way, capturing their true sentiments and perceptions. For example, PV can be used to communicate between communities to identify practices and behaviours that might need to change or to highlight needs and demands of a particular group of people in the community such as marginalised groups and minorities. The tools outlined in this section are the Problem Tree (a tool that helps participants to explore issues in depth and identify their root causes and outcomes) and the Audience Pathway (an impact planning tool that enables participants to map out how their intended audience will experience their video).

Alongside the toolkit, MEV-CAM launched two participatory videos made by communities in Malawi and Burundi, showcasing their skills, details on how to implement the practices, and the impact on their livelihoods. Click here to view the videos.