In the evolving landscape of community-based governance, particularly in rural India, Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) have been propagated by my host organization, the Foundation for Ecological Security, with the hope that they become productive and agentive tools for participatory decision-making. These institutions, built around principles of inclusion and convergence, are meant to support the sustainable management of natural resources, from obtaining Community Forest Rights (CFR) to initiatives like natural farming.
This blog will outline how to actually assess the progress of local institutions based on experience from fieldwork in Odisha, India. Evaluating the health, direction, and purpose of these MAPs remains a challenge. How do we know whether they are working? And how can communities themselves reflect on their progress? Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools such as stakeholder analysis, outcome harvesting, and progress matrices, tools developed by FES in collaboration with CoRE (Collaboration for Resilience) offer some options.
Mapping Stakeholders
Stakeholder analysis, mapping stakeholders based on their influence and support for specific issues, is a crucial entry point. This tool helps identify the power dynamics around local governance issues. But it is not always straightforward. Stakeholders’ positions can vary dramatically depending on the issue in focus. Some individuals may wield high influence but show low support—or vice versa—depending on the political context, funding climate, or prevailing local tensions.
What often emerges is that communities initially struggle to capture all relevant actors. People may only think of those immediately involved, overlooking others who indirectly shape the issue. However, when most actors are accounted for, stakeholder analysis becomes a living map, one that can adapt over time, especially in response to political changes or shifts in community priorities. It can be especially vivid when MAPs see how their stakeholder assessments have changed over time, serving as a measure of the institutions progress in engaging with its landscape.
Building Regularity and Purpose
I interviewed Karthik, a long time FES team member in Odisha, trying to understand his experiences facilitating emerging MAPs. He underscored the importance of institutional regularity. Where pre-existing platforms exist, engagement is easier. But turning a one-time meeting into a sustained institution requires identifying shared concerns, ensuring meaningful participation, and demonstrating tangible benefits. One barrier is local scepticism: why meet regularly if the outcomes aren’t clear? Addressing this requires linking meetings to immediate concerns and incentivizing engagement through recognition, learning opportunities, or results.
One recurring insight is the need for MAPs to move toward autonomy. Historically, NGOs like the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) have supported MAPs both as facilitators and implementers. But fostering self-governance requires stepping back strategically—letting the MAPs define their own direction. He emphasized that our tools should account for autonomy and clarity of vision, considering their importance in MAP success.
Reflection and Strategy Building
Outcome harvesting, essentially a tool that to access the underlying reasons for a given outcome, offers another reflective tool. It allows MAP members to understand their success. My conversations with team members revealed that this process enables issue sorting, issue prioritization, and the surfacing of underlying tensions, like gender biases or educational hierarchies that limit participation.
More importantly, outcome harvesting has strengthened MAP cohesion by enabling collective accountability. When members see the results—such as improved forest fire prevention or successful CFR by-laws, trust in the institution grows. People understand the value of their participation, which in turn fosters ownership and a stronger sense of self-reliance.
Challenges and the Path Ahead
While these tools offer valuable insights, they’re not without difficulties. Caste, class, and educational differences can silence certain voices. Communities may resist external funding for their MAPs for fear of conflict with local government institutions.
Yet, adaptive learning tools offer space to unpack these issues. The hope is that these tools do more than monitor, they nurture collective purpose.
