A photo of Isabelle Lemaire

Evaluating post-conflict programming

InsightShare’s Senior Associate, Isabelle Lemaire, discusses how our groundbreaking approach to monitoring and evaluation – fusing together Participatory Video approaches with the Most Significant Change technique – helped Mercy Corps understand the full impact of their post-conflict sports programming in Kenya, following the post-election violence in December 2007.

Download the photostory created to describe the evaluation process with Mercy Corps Kenya.


In 2013/4, Valentina Bau undertook independent research into the Participatory Video monitoring and evaluation process undertaken by InsightShare for Mercy Corps Kenya; examining its efficacy, outcomes and long-term impacts. The following is the paper she published in the Community Development Journal:

Building peace through social change communication: participatory video in conflictaffected communities

By Valentina Bau

This paper draws on the experience of conducting participatory video in the Rift Valley of Kenya after the 2007 –2008 post-election crisis, when the country underwent a period of intense ethnic violence. By linking development communication to conflict transformation theory, this article offers a framework that highlights the impact that communication for social change can have in post-conflict settings through the use of participatory media. It shows how this type of media productions can contribute to re-establishing relationships and creating a shared understanding of the conflict, while building the view of an interconnected future among opposing groups. In this case study, I illustrate how a collection of participatory videos became a peacebuilding tool for the youth in the Rift Valley. Through the information gathered from the interviews with young victims and perpetrators of the Kenya Post-election Violence, I discuss how both the filming and the screening of these films have opened a dialogue between different groups and contributed to processes of social change.

Read the full paper.