Going to scale with PRA: reflections and recommendations

Document prepared by a group of 26 participatory trainers and practitioners from NGO's and Government, mainly in South Asia, which highlights the issues surrounding the rapid spread of PRA which has taken place. The problems encountered from this scaling up are highlighted, including a lack of sufficiently experienced PRA trainers, such that there has been much poor quality training , with most notably a lack of emphasis on behaviour and attitudes and also a failure for the necessary internal change in culture and practice of the organisations adopting the approach to take place. The types of bad practice which have come about at the field level as a consequence of this are outlined, such as rigid procedures with little thought to the appropriateness of different tools. Finally, recommendations are made for dealing with some of these consequences of rapid scaling up of PRA.