Youth Engagement in Monitoring and Evaluation: How do I get started?
Youth engagement is essential to PYD because it promotes youth assets, agency and contribution. Creating an enabling environment along with promoting youth-led activities can help youth build their capacity to realize their full potential. Because meaningful youth engagement is a key component of PYD programs, it is important to consider how to measure the type and value of youth participation.
There are many different roles that engaged youth might play in program design, planning, implementation, and monitoring. In all of these different roles, some best practices can guide or support the engagement strategies employed. Meaningful youth engagement is a process which involves building youth skills and abilities to achieve their goals, developing relationships, ensuring authentic decision-making and supporting youths’ increased control over their own lives. Below is a checklist that will help researchers and program implementers identify strategies to meaningfully engage youth in M&E.
Youth Engagement Checklist in M&E
___ Ensure that leadership within the organization are fully committed to engaging young people
___ Identify and review the risks of involving young people in your work on a regular basis
___ Develop and implement a youth engagement policy youth
___Train staff on the benefits and added value of involving youth in monitoring and evaluation
Processes
___ Recruit and hire youth from diverse backgrounds
___ Develop a mutual agenda for youth participation and goals
___Train youth on the monitoring and evaluation process (e.g., as researchers, data collectors)
___ Obtain youth input on indicators used and how they are measured
___Include indicators that assess both the ‘quality and quantity or level of youth engagement’
___Disaggregate indicators by sex and age
___Measure the skills and competencies youth develop as a result of engagement. Include process and impact measures that assess leadership, communication, public speaking, goal setting, facilitation, and planning