Livelihood asset status tracking: an impact monitoring tool?

This paper raises the issue of what kind of monitoring system can serve the learning needs of livelihood improvement projects which follow a process approach. It is concerned, in particular, with monitoring not only achievement of planned project outputs, but also with higher level project impacts normally needed to achieve project purpose or goal. A simple and rapid method to track the livelihood asset status at the household level is introduced. It is based on local perceptions and converts qualitative judgement to quantitative analytical data. Some initial field results are discussed along with problems, possible solutions, points for best practice and further research possibilities. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.