ABSTRACT
A process of institutionalizing monitoring and evaluation in the natural resource management sector of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan has been undertaken. In response to forest and land degradation and increasing poverty in the province, a new participatory and integrated management approach, which involves both rural communities and the provincial Forest Department, was introduced and relies heavily on monitoring and evaluation. Monitoring and evaluation at the village level will primarily be the task of newly established Village Development Committees, with support from the Forest Department and other agencies. Appropriate performance, progress and effect indicators have been developed at the village level. Monitoring and evaluation also needs to be integrated into the operational and strategic planning cycles of the Forest Department. At these planning levels mechanisms for participation need to be created. To move from the old to the new situation, change is needed in attitudes, notably of Forest Department staff, for whom monitoring used to mean “staff control” only. It also requires major efforts in capacity building. Donors and the highest layers of government should fully endorse the process.
