Some thoughts on participation in our activities.
Often a participant list is written and the number of male and female participants counted.

During the PLA (Participatory Learning and Action) field trainings in Nebbi and Apac, it became apparent that the above way of monitoring participation is very misleading. What we monitor is presence and not participation.

Here are two photos from the trainings.
One shows that the women are present in the group but not participating (they are sitting at a side while the men are active around the diagram they are drawing).
The other shows that the women are actively participating in the construction of the diagram.

This might be of use for us to develop other monitoring tools to differentiate between presence and participation. Photographs and videos are valuable.

I am concerned about this as a number of donors and NGOs are giving "incentives" such as food or money for the villagers to be present in trainings and meetings at village level. In my oppinion that is only to keep the "participation" number high to be able to receive further funding for similar activities. The NGO field staff are not actively finding solution to this problem as they also are employed in the system and have to protect their own jobs. They are rarely in the business of eliminating themselves.

I call this whole scenario "poverty maintenence" as there are many politicians, organisations and individuals living of keeping the poor at the level they are.