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SUPERVISION AS AN ÁPPROPRIATE FORM OF INTERNAL MONITORING WITHIN EUROPEAN
UNION COOPERATION DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
due to the different levels on which supervision would be implemented (Project
team level, Coordination Board level).
Although there is an agreement about supervision functions and purposes,
there is still no agreement about supervision tasks. Bernard in 1979 developed
a discrimination model with three tasks: supervisor as teacher, supervisor as
counsellor and supervisor as consultant.? From these supervisor roles arise
tasks that coincide with the, above mentioned, three monitoring functions.
The methodology of management of development projects should be, in
my opinion, based on the presumption that every change should be reached
exclusively as an outcome of participative process of problem solving that
envisages an active participation of all stakeholders and target groups. Ac¬
tion research is a learning process as well as process of development and
improvement of working practice that connects action and reflection, theory
and practice and is based on presumptions of active participation. For this
reason I believe that action research methodology should be an appropriate
methodology in planning and management of internal monitoring process.
Furthermore, Reason and Bradbury?? define action research as participative,
democratic process which aims towards development of practical knowledge
among community interventions that are founded on participatory principles.
Stringer" points out that there is a tendency among practitioners of action
research the effort to find ways to go beyond individual and local in order to
influence social issues and development of policies on regional and national
level. Development projects are basically conceived as instruments that promote
bottom up processes within contexts of change, national and regional reforms
implementation. That is one of the reasons why participation and ownership
have such an important role in the context of development projects.
CONCLUSION
By analysing the basic monitoring and supervision characteristics as well as
by the qualitative analysis of the outcomes of my personal experience as far as
planning, implementing and evaluation of development projects are concerned,
a theoretical and methodological framework of supervision as a form of internal
22 Ibid.
3 P. Reason — H. Bradbury, Handbook of action research, London, Sage Publications, 2001.
4 E. Stringer, This is so democratic! Action research and policy development in East Timor, in
P. Reason — H. Bradbury, Action research participative inquiry and practice, London, Sage
publications, 2008, 550-562.