Part A: Identification of the output users

A broad target audience for the outputs of the project was identified when it was first designed. However, a broad target audience is not a homogeneous group. Within the target audience of a rural community there are distinguishable groups which represent certain interests, who use specific resources, who go to the same religious group, or work in the same small business or field, who save money together, who are of a similar age, or fall into the same income bracket etc. There are countless ways in which the community stratifies itself. In order to create outputs which are appropriate to all these different groups (users) it is necessary to identify them. One output for all may not serve the informational requirements of different users or reflect cultural, language or gender sensitivities.

An evaluation team is put together by the evaluation facilitator. The local project co-ordinator who directed the participatory research, the oldest couple in the village, the village traditional doctor and the political representative for the village in the nearby urban area form the team. Together they compile a list of significant groups within the village. This list is verified by looking at what the people in the village said during the participatory research exercise (i.e. by looking at the content that is supposed to go into the community output(s)). Essentially these groups become the users of the outputs.

Again the broad target audience of decision-makers is very vague and can refer to any number of user groups. The evaluation facilitator sets up a team to identify groups of decision-makers who should be reached through the policy output(s). A certain degree of continuity can be maintained by including some members from the team which identified the users of the community output. The facilitator decides that this is desirable because representatives from the community will ensure that users of a policy document are targeted who will take the community into consideration in their decision-making. So, the village traditional doctor and the political representative for the village are invited to join this team. The political representative is deemed to be important because he/she understands the broader policy environment and external forces acting within that environment. The goals and objective of the policy section of the project can be kept in the forefront by including the original project designer. It turns out that the facilitator knows a professor of political science at the national university who is well versed in the politics of the day and how this relates to what's happening on the international front. And so the team swells to four plus the facilitator. The policy analyst joins the team too in order to verify the user groups identified by the rest of the team.