A formal "FAO-type land evaluation" had been carried out by Southern Highlands Rural Development project in Papua New Guinea. The objective was next to "identify the social overlay" on this physical inventory - ie "who governs who has access to what land". The team of three used aerial photographs as one of several RRA tools.
Based in Mongolia, this study is an interesting example of combining natural resource ranking with seasonal calendars. The result is maps for different times in the year, which clearly show differentials between seasons and times when food is short. The method is clearly described and the uses to which the results can be put discussed.
This article is based on work done by the Policy Alternatives for Livestock Development project which is facilitating the transfer from a command to a market economy in the extensive rural livestock sector in Mongolia. Wealth ranking was used in the early stages of this project. The paper is interesting as rather than discussing and describing the wealth ranking method. It considers the policy reasons for using this method, the role and value of wealth ranking by card sorting and its position in the research and training process.
This report analyses the characteristics of a sample of local pastoral institutions in two contrasting ecological zones in Mongolia. The main body of the report presents the findings of the research. A brief section on methodology outlines the field research methods used, which were a combination of PRA and more conventional techniques. The participatory techniques included wealth ranking, and social mapping, which was used to identify the composition of local institutions.
The Policy Alternatives for Livestock Development (PALD) project aims to facilitate the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy in the extensive livestock sector which dominates the Mongolian rural economy. This report outlines some of the participatory research methods which were used during the training of the Mongolian research team. The methods described include wealth ranking, participatory mapping, transects, ranking of grazing resources, and seasonal calendars showing production, climatic variations, incidence of disease and labour requirements.
Following the dismantling of the pastoral collectives in Mongolia, a wide variety of formal as well as informal institutions currently exist. While informal community organisations are the main context in which pastoral livestock production is carried out, the question of which institutions will take over the functions of the former collectives is still open. This paper describes how PRA methods were used to try to understand herders' perceptions of the various institutions they participate in.
Wealth ranking was one of the methods used in the early stages of a collaborative research and training project in Mongolia. It served two main purposes, direct and indirect. The direct purpose was to identify locally important criteria for distinguishing households according to wealth, status and power. It was also used to stratify the populations of the sample production brigades, as a first step towards understanding differences in the ways richer and poorer herding households managed their herds, gained access to key natural resources, and responded to risk.
It describes why and how wealth ranking was used in the early stages of a collaborative policy research and training project in Mongolia. The Policy Alternatives for Livestock Development project aims to facilitate the transition from a command to a market economy in the extensive livestock sector which dominates the Mongolian rural economy. The paper addresses the role and value of wealth ranking by card sorting in the research and training process, and its sequencing with other activities, rather than the technical details of the method itself.