Guijt, Irene

This article gives account for experiences from the Centre for Alternative Technologies (CTA), an NGO working on alternative futures for and with rural small-scale farmers in Zona da Mata of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. CTA staff work with a Local Development Plan (LDP) focussing on developing participatory Municipal Rural Development Plans (MRDP) in three municipalities: Araponga, Tombos, and Acaiaca. This article compares the three municipal planning processes, offering them as an exiting alternative methodology for local development in the Brazilian context.

This document is an annotated reference list on Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation for Natural Resources Systems Programme (NRSP) Project Managers. The annotated references have been grouped into the following five categories: A: Overview of (P) M&E, B: Indicators, C: Methods, D: Case Studies and E: Generic M&E Websites. For easy access the references have been organised in a table in line with these categories and include details of thematic focus and keywords. Each reference has been coded A-E and then ranked according to relevance to the NRSP audience.

This paper provides a history of participatory planning, beginning in the 1970s, when there was growing disillusionment to existing approaches to development. Participatory development then went through a number of phases resulting in massive global interest and a huge range of participatory processes taking place. Following growing criticism, the author considers that participation today is moving towards quality and continual learning.

Abstractor - please leave note at end (Also in English see record no. 1992)

This introduction to the "Learning from Analysis" theme looks at the definition of analysis and at it's benefits, considers different types of analysis and who is involved in it, and investigates the tools and methods used for analysis. Finally it considers the match between good local analysis and outside expectations, as well as facilitation for analysis. It asserts that thorough analysis can make the difference between a superficial descriptive report or simplistic feedback session and one that is based on a deep understanding, with ownership that motivates people to action.

This special edition of PLA notes looks at Learning from Analysis. Where does participation in analysis begin and end? When does it happen and how and by whom is local learning represented? The articles in this issue discuss what happens when data is "collected", discussed, summarised and shared, where priorities are made and action points agreed. Insights are shared from community-based analysis of gender differences in Uganda, poverty assessment in the UK, and irrigation planning in Peru.

"Dans ce rapport, notre objectif est d'evaluer les forces, les limitations et les complementarites relatives de deux methodes qui sont particulierement repandues: la MARP/PRA et le developpement participatif de technologie (DPT). ... Nous commencons par decrire les conditions favorables au developpement participatif dans le secteur agricole et le principe fondamental sur lequel il s'appuie, c'est-a-dire, la participation.

This introductory chapter argues that many participatory development intiatives do not deal well with the complexity of community differences, including age, economic, religious, caste, ethnic and, in particular, gender. The fields of participatory development and gender have remained far apart, both in theory and practice, despite their shared goals of social inclusion and societal transformation.

Wild resources are often of vital importance to rural people's livelihoods but are often overlooked in conventional valuations. This paper provides an over view of the methodological approach used by IIED's Hidden Harvest research programme which undertook inventories and valuation studies with the resource users themselves withnthe aim of revealing more comprehensive and relevant, rather than assumed, economic values of local resources and incentives for their management.