An internal learning system (ILS), created for a development organization operating savings/credit programs with poor women, is used for data collection, monitoring, and evaluation. The ILS is participatory, pictorial, decentralized, and flexible; it documents socioeconomic impact and supports action planning. (SK)

Two approaches for evaluating community development are: community stories--locally developed ethnographies for community-led change; and sponsor-backed evaluation using coproduced indicators and standards. (SK)

Despite the newly decentralized local government system in Ghana, communities have been slow to develop broad-based participatory consultative processes for community development. Inflexible bureaucracy also hinders involvement of stakeholders. (SK)

Reviews eight books: "Autonomous Development" (R. Carmen); "Community Power and Grassroots Democracy" (M. Kaufman, H. Alfonso); "Questioning Empowerment" (J. Rowlands); "Seeking a Balance" (A. Fowler); "Funding Community Initiatives" (S. Arrossi et al.); "Whose Voice?" (J. Holland, J.…

Community auditing is an empowering process enabling communities to participate in research, identify its focus, and have ownership. Comparison with other methods shows how auditing supports real participation, not mere consultation. (SK)

Summarizes competing approaches to the role of culture in community development and use of community media--as top-down dissemination of messages or as participatory action research. Presents a case study of the use of video for community participation and empowerment in Burkina Faso. (Author/SK)

Outlines the participatory self-evaluation methods of the People's Participation Programme of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Benefits, six steps for introducing the method, and problems of language, comparability of numbers, and objectivity are described. (SK)

A case study of the evaluation of urban policy in Northern Ireland showed how two forms of policy evaluation--instrumental, which is concerned with performance measures and efficiency, and interpretive, which is concerned with power relationships--can be reconciled using community audits and participatory action research. (SK)

Describes projects of the School of Social Work at Central America University, Nicaragua: (1) development of a postgraduate course for professionals; (2) discovery learning and participatory action research in a fishing village; and (3) application of participatory approaches to rural development. (SK)

A participatory research process with inner-city unemployed people in New Zealand demonstrated that (1) consumers of social services should have greater input in policymaking and (2) consumers can work actively and collectively to effect change without blind commitment to a particular ideology. (SK)

Communication activities in participatory development programs include (1) theater for development in Africa; (2) workshops on cultural identity and politics in Colombia; and (3) Project DELSILIFE, improving the quality of life in Manila. (SK)