Citizens monitoring

Objective

The aim of citizen monitoring is strengthening primary stakeholders’ involvement as active participants to track and analyse progress towards jointly agreed results and deciding on corrective action. Moreover it allows a cyclical learning process to reflect continuously on the effects of the actions and to create conducive conditions for change and action.

Methods / Tools

Steps for citizen monitoring implementation

• Building commitment and engagement at the community level;
• Deciding on who participates and how this will evolve;
• During the process:
• Jointly establishing goals and expectations;
• Tracking progress and information collection,
• Joint analysis, sharing results and identifying action points
• Communication and feed-back systems to community; to program, other stakeholders and fora

Tools required

• Community Score Card (CSC)
• Consulting and Monitoring Groups (CMGs)
• Community-based monitoring (CBMES)

Examples

Database of citizen monitoring projects http://www.progettosubambiente.org/ http://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/970/1/cahunsbe2004.pdf

Sources

1. Goffredo S., Piccinetti C., Zaccanti F. 2004: Volunteers in marine conservation monitoring: Mediterranean Hippocampus Mission, a study on the distribution of seahorses carried out in collaboration with recreational scuba divers. Conservation Biology 18: 1492-1503
2. Hunsberg C.,2004, Exploring links between citizen environmental monitoring and decision making: three canadian case examples http://hdl.handle.net/10012/970