15. Key Informant Monitoring

The Key Informant Monitoring (KIM) is an innovative and participatory approach to program monitoring and research. KIM is more than a monitoring tool; it is also a tool for advocacy, participatory planning and empowerment of marginalized group (Hawkins et al, 2004). This is derived from Participatory Ethnographic Evaluation and Research (PEER) where a women member of a community is selected and trained as a Key Informant (KI).  Each KI then is asked to choose two friends among her closest, as the peers of the respondent. Then the KI builds rapport with her peer and requests her to be the informant. Upon the agreement, the KI starts interacting with her peer using 'third person interview techniques', within the themes agreed and provided. The themes, sub-themes and related questions are prepared and practised in the course of training. The interactions mostly begin with stories related to the maternal child health in the community, mostly using 'third person interviews'. The KIs debrief the information to the main researcher in this case the DFs, in a designated time and place. The researcher (DF) notes the key information and prepares a report on it.

In this study, the KIM was the most important tool of the voice capturing in terms of its peer ethnographic orientation of data collection among the peer groups of service receivers. Its anthropological orientation of the data extraction and understanding of the issues gave rich personal and private information to the researchers. The selection and training of local informants gave insightful and meaningful information that an outsider would have never extracted. This tool was tested and proven as one of the best for collecting of the 'voiceless'.  During this research, a five day residential Training of Trainers (ToT) was organised for the District Facilitators (DFs) where they were trained to conduct district level KIM training in their respective districts. The core KIM trainers of Options UK, HICODEF and EAP had facilitated the training. Following the training, the key trainers (DFs) prepared plan of action with agreed criteria to select seven KIs per Village Development Committee (VDC), making 14 KIs in two VDCs per district. This made 112 KIs in eight research districts with a total of 294 respondents. The KIs social groups (as categorised by the Department for International Development (DFID) Nepal are provided in Annex 1 against the actual population are provided in the Table 1.

Looking at the distribution of the KIs, Brahmin/Chhetris, Relatively Advantage Janajatis (RAJs) and Other Excluded groups were slightly under represented whereas Disadvantaged Janajatis (DAJ) and Religious Minorities were over represented. It was believed that the representation of the KIs was the key point to start an authentic voice collection. Viewing fair representation of the poorest and marginalised section of the communities, selection criteria (Annex 2) were set to ensure inclusive KIs in each VDC of the districts. The PC with the coordination of the EAPC and EASOs conducted village level workshops and involved the key actors of the village in KIs selection.  It was interesting to note that the closed society like Religious minorities i.e. Muslims, some Dalits in the terai competed for the position. Some Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) were disappointed for not being selected, as the KIs this time were chosen from the fresh, not from the existing health volunteers.

 Colloquial languages were used while collecting information. The KIs and DFs used local languages namely Tharu, Bhojpuri in the terai, Magar and Doteli dialects in the hills. The information were collected under the agreed three themes, namely – a) Condition and position of a woman in household and community, b) Safe motherhood (pregnancy, delivery, post delivery, neonatal and abortion care) related problems and dangers, and c) Access to and quality of services. Under each theme, their sub-themes and possible questions were worked out and agreed in the training (Annex 3). The KIs were trained in 'third person interview technique' with role plays and drills until they were confident enough to do it in the field. The KIM field work was conducted in three weeks interval in each district starting from first themes followed by debriefing of each KI. Following the KIs training in April-May 2008, the field work took place during June to August 2008. All debriefing notes were transcribed and analysed while preparing the district reports. Please refer to separate Voice Capturing Guidelines for detail process.