Small Reservoirs Tool Kit 1 Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA)1

The phrase “impact pathways ” (IPs) describes how project strategies and activities are expected to produce changes in the knowledge, attitudes, skills and practices of stakeholders. These changes are referred to as behavioral changes or outcomes. IPs may also include projections about how these outcomes are expected to contribute to social, environmental or economic change. “Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis ” (PIPA) is a practical planning, monitoring and evaluation approach developed for use with complex projects in the water and food sectors. It goes beyond the traditional use of logic models by engaging stakeholders in a structured process, promoting learning, and provides a framework for ‘action research ’ on change processes. Guided by structured questions a group of project participants and stakeholders describe what they think is going to happen during their project and beyond. This is done by examining two things: 1) why the problem the project is designed to solve exists, and 2) what the stakeholder’s relationships are and influence they have on the problem and each other. This tool describes the use of PIPA by researchers who face the following challenges: How to harness the project’s development potential from an early stage