Leurs, R.

Summary of perceived challenges facing the work of six NGO's and one government project in South Asia shared at a series of two day workshops. The workshops were carried out as part of a proposed international research project on the perceived impact, quality and challenges facing participatory rural appraisal.

This report is a detailed account of a study on the impact of PRA. The main objective of the study was to elicit the perceptions of individuals and agencies (including communities) involved in promoting and practising PRA. They were asked about what they think the impact of PRA has been on their own lives, on their organisations as well as on other participating organisations.

A pilot course on project identification was run for 24 heads of local government departments in several states in Northern Nigeria. The first course was based on fieldwork and focussed on applying RRA techniques for the purpose of project identification. This report evaluates the training programme from a methodological perspective, pointing out mistakes that were made, such as using a questionnaire instead of a checklist. The analysis also shows the importance of working out participants' specific training needs and developing a model to meet these.

An analysis of problems encountered when training local Government officers in Nigeria in RRA techniques, is followed by suggestions for improving the course. A detailed account of each training module for topics such as checklist approach, semi-structured interviewing, wealth ranking, gives lists of questions for the trainer to ask and suggested structure for each session. In the final section, wider issues around selection of trainees and institutional training are discussed.

This training course in RRA techniques was held for heads of local government departments of several states in Northern Nigeria. The report does not describe the training sessions, but evaluates how various RRA techniques were carried out in the village context.