A restocking project in Isiolo District in north-east Kenya aimed to help displaced families go back to a 'traditional' pastoral way of life by giving them goats. Success ranking was one of the PRA techniques used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the scheme. The objective was to determine each individual household's level of success and to elicit the local people's perception of success.
This article describes the technique of ranking and provides three examples of using ranking to collect information. The exercises were all carried out by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in Kenya and Zimbabwe. The first example is from a baseline survey in Zimbabwe using wealth ranking. The second is a disease ranking which was carried out during monitoring of the Kenya Livestock and Pastoral Programme (KLPP). The third example is of a success ranking exercise conducted during an evaluation of a restocking programme in Isiolo District in Kenya.