EVALUATING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH: THE IDRC/SPARC/GES/FUDECO RESEARCH ON PASTORALISTS WOMEN IN MAYO INNE DISTRICT, FUFORE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA

In 2022 and 2023, Fulbe Development and Cultural Organisation (FUDECO) conducted participatory action research (PAR) in a pastoralists’ settlement in Mayo Inne District of Fufore Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Nigeria. The research was on behalf of the International Development Research Center, Canada (IDRC), Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture in Recurrent and Protracted Crisis (SPARC), and Gender Equality in the Sahel (GES). The research highlighted part of the growing interest in participatory action research (PAR). However, despite this interest and the vast literature on evaluation work generally, little is known about the evaluation of participatory action research (PARs). The overall trajectories that emerge are very detailed explanations of how to evaluate other forms of research especially those generating primary data through questionnaires and laboratory tests. The PAR in Mayo Inne was not one of them. This article reviews basic evaluation literature while drawing attention to the fact that such literature has failed to provide techniques, ways, or approaches to how PARs can be evaluated. Therefore, using the Mayo Inne example, the article explains how the research was evaluated without using traditional evaluation methods and proposes that the method used for the Mayo Inne research would also be valuable in evaluating PARs in other places and therefore will contribute to the central tenets of evaluation.