Giving ‘power to the people’ in a Nigerian hospital: From evaluation over to evaluation with stakeholders

Abstract

“Power to the people” is a popular political slogan that is used to convey the essence of democracy and participation. This paper derives from an action research intervention to implement participatory evaluation in a medium-sized private hospital in Nigeria, where the author was a training consultant. While the original objective of the intervention was to improve effectiveness of training through participatory evaluation, the study enabled an important outcome: it helped in clarifying and resolving social power differences prevalent in evaluation. The paper therefore contributes to the theory and practice of action research by describing how a researcher may better understand and relate to others with regard to social power. This plays a potentially useful role especially in participatory evaluation.