Lesson 22. Monitoring outcomes

The assessment criterion is not so much the quality of the assessment process as the outcomes. The outcomes are what we want to achieve through participatory assessment and its products. Outcomes may include impacts on awareness raising, public debate or environmental management decision making, depending on the priorities set by the Triage process.

However, outcomes are not immediate, they often have medium- or long-term consequences. Although this is not easy to implement, it is interesting for all participants that the results are monitored over time.

One of the expected outcomes is social learning in the engagement process, which is measured in terms of the desire of those engaged to repeat the same type of exercise to go further or address a different issue. At present, most of these time-consuming exercises are carried out at the initiative of researchers. One indicator of success in a territory would be to have generated a demand from either policy makers or managers for further assessments. Interreg is one instrument, among others, that makes it possible to mobilise the level of resources and partnership, between science and management, necessary for this type of exercise.