The paper describes a short exercise which was designed to explore the potential use of RRA/PRA for BRAC, an NGO working with rural people in Bangladesh. The first part of the report provides an overview of the applications and procedures for using various RRA/PRA techniques. The second part presents the findings of an attempt to use RRA methods to assess the performance of a BRAC-supported village deep tubewell group.
This report describes how RRA techniques were introduced to six fieldworkers, to enable them to assess the performance of a BRAC supported village tubewell group. RRA/PRA techniques are summarised on a chart, with particular attention to their sequence. Each technique is then described in terms of "applications and procedure", the latter given as numbered instructions. The field work explored issues such as implications for women, employment opportunities, seasonal effects of the deep tubewell project.
RRA techniques are taught as part of the three month course on "Rural Research and Rural Policy" at the Institute of Development Studies, UK. This article describes two exercises that were introduced to provide practical "field" experience: an RRA of IDS and a visit to a local farm. Most of the course participants were from 'Southern' countries and the "individual exercises were conducted almost exactly as they would be in a Third World village".
Refering to a previous article, which attempted to assess the accuracy of various relatively rapid means of stratifying a rural population in Bangladesh, this paper argues that that exercise was somewhat premature. Little progress can be made toward improving the efficiency with which succeeding generations of fieldworkers conduct their enquiries, until more is known about the way in which existing practitioners have divided their time and the considerations behind these allocative decisions.