Cornwall, Andrea

A participatory well-being needs assessment on a deprived urban housing estate on the outskirts of London in UK. The report describes how the process of using a participatory approach proved as, if not more, important as any substantive findings about the well being needs of people on the estate. What mattered most was not what was known, but who found out about it and how. The report describes the different methods and tactics employed to incorporate different voices from around the community and some of the essential outcomes.

The Pathways to Participation International Retreat was convened in April 2000, as part of the Pathways to Participation Project. The Project aims to support critical reflection on PRA and participation, in order to improve the quality and impact of participatory work. The retreat brought together a diversity of PRA practitioners, and provided a space for people to critically reflect on their own experiences. This document records the events of the retreat, reflecting the diversity of views that emerged, while focussing on some key themes.

In both the North and the South there is increasing awareness that citizens should be able to play a more active part in life-affecting decision making. The authors propose that both participatory democracy and responsive government should be developed and become mutually reinforcing. Thus, this article explores the challenges faced in attempting to ensure citizen - in particular poor citizen - participation and institutional responsiveness and accountability.

This book is a collection of writings about gender in Africa. The collection aims to serve both as a general introduction to the field and to highlight some of the main themes in the literature. The collection brings together early feminist scholarship with new and unpublished work, spanning the continent and representing the diversity of scholarship on gender in sub-Saharan Africa.

Participatory appraisal was used by members of a local health forum to involve users in the design of a new health centre in Pollards Hill, as part of an effort to engage local people in addressing wellbeing challenges in the area. This article describes the process, elaborating on the methods used and the outputs of the participatory appraisal. The participatory appraisal enabled local people to be involved in the design planning of the health centre, as well as to name, reflect on and analyse health service delivery and wellbeing issues in the community.

This paper describes how theatre can be used to feedback and follow-up with communities studied in rapid rural appraisal training courses. Two techniques for feedback, evaluation and motivation - dramatisation and workshops - are discussed.

Participation is never simply about what development agencies do out there. It is also about the play of power inside such organisations, and about the values, attitudes and behaviour of those who work within them.The Swedish official development cooperation agency, Sida, has long had policies that advocate participation in development. Yet putting these policies, and the ideals they represent, into practice has proven to be very challenging. This paper explores some of the ways in which participation has been interpreted and applied in Sida's work.

This short article, in the ætips for trainers' section of the special 50th edition of PLA notes, looks at agreeing ground rules for discussions with participants involved in a workshop. After explaining that ground rules can help participants to feel safe expressing themselves, the authors describe a simple exercise that could be used to come up with ground rules in a workshop. The ground rules can then serve as a kind of group contract that can support an emotionally safe space for sharing and can also be referred to throughout the workshop.

As part of the special 50th edition of PLA notes, the authors reflect on the evolution of PRA from its early days as Rapid Rural Appraisal to its current form as Participatory Learning and Action. The article looks at how criticisms about quality and approach have been incorporated and responded to during the evolution of PLA, as has the increasingly important idea of empowerment. The article also touches on scaling-up participation and the appropriation by some of the ideals by international agencies such as the World Bank.