Radical inclusion is the practice of ensuring that diverse perspectives are fully integrated at every stage of the PMEL process, from design to analysis. For PMEL practitioners, this means going beyond tokenistic participation and creating spaces where marginalised voices are not only heard but have real decision-making power. That means that when designing a methodology or scoping out a project, think about whether the evaluation questions can be co-designed with them. 

The principle of radical inclusion stems from the idea that all people, regardless of their background, should have an equal opportunity to participate in shaping the programs and policies that affect their lives. This is particularly important in our work, where evaluators are often external to the project – or at least, not part of the program team. to do our jobs well, we need a deeper understanding of the communities the work is serving.

One practical tool for achieving radical inclusion is the use of Participatory Action Research (PAR). In PAR, community members are treated as co-researchers rather than subjects, and they actively participate in all stages of the research process – from its design stage, as above. This method ensures that research questions, data collection methods, and analysis are shaped by the people most affected by the issues being studied.

Another is thinking through how to integrate different perspectives – deeper than demographic diversity, like getting different genders and racialised people to be involved. You may want to bring in inclusive facilitation in your workshops for example, like Affinity Grouping, where participants from marginalised groups first meet separately to discuss their perspectives and then bring those insights into a larger, mixed-group discussion. This helps to ensure that more dominant group members – from natural extroverts to people in specific age groups who tend to take up more space than those below 30 or above 60 – do not drown out their voices.

It also allows us to practice our values, and helps us understand how themes like equity and justice show up in our work. in turn this can help our work in PMEL, maybe even the programs, become more community-led or at least community-driven.