Capturing change: utilising photovoice for participatory monitoring and evaluation in Laos

June 5, 2025

The Crawford Fund’s highly sought after Student Awards are one way we support and encourage the next generation of Australians into study, careers and volunteering in international agricultural research.

The awards are funded by our State and Territory Committees and made possible by organisations including ACIAR, international centres, Australian and overseas universities and NGOs who host our awardees.

Fifteen talented university students from around Australia were awarded our 2024 Student Awards. As part of this cohort, we would like to share the experience of Francesca Earp from James Cook University who travelled to Laos for research utilising photovoice technology for participatory monitoring and evaluation in collaboration with the country’s Rural Development Agency.

“Women’s empowerment has become central to most agricultural development programs, however, designing and implementing culturally-sensitive approaches to gender-targeted development remains challenging,” said Francesca.

To address these difficulties, development agencies often advocate for the use of participatory approaches, such as Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) or Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodologies she explained.

Since 2024, the Rural Development Agency, a Lao-based Civil Society Organisation, has been engaged in a participatory action research (PAR) project focusing on women’s empowerment and climate resilience in Northern Laos. Chanthalangsy, the Executive Director of RDA, and Francesca saw this project as an opportunity for collaboration, as it related to Francesca’s PhD research assessing Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) approaches to gender-targeted development.

This collaboration inspired the development of Francesca’s Student Award project, ‘Capturing Change: Utilising Photovoice for Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation’. Data co-collected via this project was utilised by the RDA for their PAR project and by Francesca as data for her PhD.

“We selected photovoice, a participatory method utilising photographs to co-generate data, as the method for this project because it aims to platform the voices of minority communities in a safe and protected environment,” said Francesca.

“Specifically, photovoice encourages co-researchers with limited Lao language and/or literacy skills to be involved in data co-creation this was an important consideration given this project worked with Akha women, an ethnic group in Northern Laos,” she added.

“During the photovoice activity co-researchers in Northern Laos were asked to take photos of the factors that influence women’s engagement in gender-targeted development programs,” she said.

“A series of training sessions and data co-creation activities were designed and implemented in collaboration with the Laos RDA,” said Francesca.

The facilitation team collected photovoice data in two villages in Northern Laos. The team spent two days in each village: the first day was dedicated to co-creating photovoice data with co-researchers, and the second day was spent interviewing co-researchers. An evaluation day was held between village visits. The photovoice facilitation team also returned to the two target villages as part of the project’s evaluation process later in the process.

“During M&E Foundations training, the RDA team and I identified gaps within the their M&E framework which limited its successful application to M&E programs,” she said.

Francesca then collaborated with consultants from Ethos of Engagement (EoE) to design an M&E Framework training program and training session focusing on the relationship between program logics and M&E frameworks and responsive to the RDA’s needs. This session was hosted as a hybrid session with Francesca in-person in Vientiane and EoE consultants joining online.

According to Fran, there are several key findings from the ‘Capturing Change’ project including: the need to localise F/PAR approaches to development; the need to adapt M&E frameworks; and, factors influencing community engagement with gender-targeted development.

Francesca outlined two main benefits of the ‘Capturing Change’ project – the delivery of participatory research and M&E training and new knowledge about participatory approaches to gender-targeted development in Laos.

Firstly, the main focus of this project was the design and delivery of a successful tailored training program. The benefits of this training program extend beyond the immediate knowledge gained, as it provides valuable upskilling to the RDA and their research partners. The ‘Capturing Change’ training program strengthened the RDAs understanding of PAR, FPAR and M&E research and strengthened their capacity for future development programs.

Additionally, findings from this project strengthened the project team’s understanding of the needs of CSOs working on F/PAR in Laos. As a result, a tailored training session was developed. This information will help improve the design and delivery of future training sessions in Laos and the region.

Secondly, the ‘Capturing Change’ project was a two-way learning opportunity. The findings of this project strengthened the project team’s understanding of participatory approaches to gender-targeted development. Through their expertise and experience working with communities in Laos, the RDA guided Francesca and the EoE team on the localisation of development programs to address gender-inclusion in a culturally appropriate manner. These findings led to the co-generation of a locally-led model of F/PAR.

The ‘Capturing Change’ project also provided a range of benefits to Queensland. These benefits included improved knowledge on participatory approaches to development programming; improved collaboration with local development agencies in Laos; and, capacity building of development organisations in Laos. Further, the promotion of locally-led and culturally-sensitive development practice and the upskilling of Lao and Australian practitioners via the ‘Capturing Change’ project will improve Australia’s delivery of successful community development in the future.

Francesca has written a blog for the London School of Economics (LSE) titled ‘Does participatory action research need to be feminist?” based on her experiences working with the RDA. She plans to publish chapters from her thesis and to co-present this research at conferences with Chanthalangsy, including the 2025 Australian Aid Conference.