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Participatory Video and the Most Significant Change

This toolkit has been developed to support you in planning and carrying out evaluations using Participatory Video with the Most Significant Change technique (PVMSC). This is a participatory approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning that amplifies the voices of participants and helps organisations to better understand and improve their programmes.

We have been developing, adapting and using PVMSC over the course of many years, during which time we have seen how it creates unique opportunities for organisations to learn; through a cycle of reflection and reshaping of programmes in line with participants’ values. Countless people have asked us to provide guidance on using Participatory Video as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) tool, and it became clear the time was right for us to collate our experiences and document the methodology we have developed. The resulting toolkit ‘Participatory Video and the Most Significant Change’ is now available as a FREE DOWNLOAD from the link below in English. A section of the toolkit is available in French.

Download ‘Participatory Video and the Most Significant Change’

‘The advice on handling what can be quite emotional moments when people tell stories that matter to them is well said, and is often not covered in text or training introductions to MSC. The advice on taking care with editing video records of MSC stories is also good, addressing an issue that has always niggled me.’

Rick Davies (Independent Evaluator and Creator of MSC)

‘Participatory Video and the Most Significant Change’ was written by Sara Asadullah and Soledad Muñiz, InsightShare.

Produced with support from UNICEF in partnership with C4D Network.

 

Supporting materials:

The use of MSC as a technique for evaluation is carefully and thoroughly explored by Rick Davies and Jess Dart in their wonderful manual ‘The Most Significant Change (MSC) Technique’, which we recommend to anyone wanting to practice PVMSC. Similarly, InsightShare has produced numerous resources on the practice of Participatory Video in general. We encourage you to read, watch and learn from these other sources to find information that will not be repeated in this document (although we have placed references throughout to help the reader find relevant resources).

What we present here is a synthesis of the two techniques, focussing on the practical application of the tool. The toolkit aims to be lightweight and useable. We provide references to articles and publications where we have discussed the theory and practice of using Participatory Video for monitoring and evaluation in more detail as well as the practical application of the tool.

To find out more about InsightShare and how we use PVMSC check out our YouTube Channel dedicated to this method.

“A great way to really listen to the voice of communities. It’s great to use video and I like the process of MSC, so combining the two will work really well. The guide is well-written with lots of examples and cross references.”

Angela Kellet (Independent Evaluator and trainer at BOND)