Who Counts? The Power of Participatory Statistics
Channel: Institute of Development Studies
Date: 2014-05-01

Local people can generate their own numbers -- and the statistics that result are powerful for themselves and can influence policy.

Since the early 1990s there has been a quiet tide of innovation in generating statistics using participatory methods. Development practitioners are supporting and facilitating participatory statistics from community-level planning right up to sector and national-level policy processes. Statistics are being generated in the design, monitoring and evaluation, and impact assessment of development interventions. The challenge laid down is to foster institutional change on the back of the methodological breakthroughs and philosophical commitment described in this book. The prize is a win--win outcome in which statistics are a part of an empowering process for local people and part of a real-time information flow for those aid agencies and government departments willing to generate statistics in new ways.

The speaker is Jeremy Holland who is a Social Development Consultant with 20 years' experience in research and advisory work in developing and transitional countries.