From participation to evaluative authority: Hybrid monitoring and evaluation systems as negotiated architectures in Mauritania

Stakeholder participation is frequently invoked in development and humanitarian monitoring and evaluation (M&E) as evidence of legitimacy, ownership or quality, yet participation may remain disconnected from evaluative authority under unequal conditions. Drawing on three decades of evaluation practice in Mauritania, this article develops five propositions explaining the gap between participatory aspiration and evaluative agency in practice: transactional participation, protective praise, responsibility without decision rights, political recognition and construct misalignment. It situates these patterns within participatory, culturally responsive, Indigenous, Made-in-Africa and Pacific-led evaluation scholarship. The article distinguishes additive participation, in which roles are added without reallocating authority, from negotiated hybrid architecture. Such architecture makes authority over questions, criteria, evidence, interpretation, use, resources and safeguards contestable. External standards may be retained, translated, supplemented, displaced or rejected, while locally grounded practices become sources of judgement rather than inputs for upward reporting. The framework clarifies when participation can become evaluative agency in settings marked by dependency and power differentials.