RESEARCH NEEDS FOR SUSTAINABLE COCOA PRODUCTION IN GHANA
Monitoring & Evaluation
Research needs:
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What participatory monitoring systems can be used?
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How to evaluate the impact of a complex project in a consolidated way?
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What is the most effective way practicing adaptive management?
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How to do monitoring and evaluation of the project on the long term?
Monitoring of the project impact and evaluating the results is a requirement for all projects, to determine the effectiveness and determine areas for improvement. Monitoring can be done in a participatory way, where farmers contribute to the process. This could enhance involvement and can be an efficient method for data collection.
In the section “project sustainability” it was mentioned that a project should be designed to create a long term impact. This means, that it is also important to ensure that monitoring and evaluation of the project will continue on the long term, beyond the implementation timeframe to keep track of the sustainable impact. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) recently published a tool for monitoring of resilience of agricultural projects, which could serve as a starting point for sustainable monitoring and evaluation (Hills et al., 2015).