Re-Tooling In Applied Social Investigation for Development Planning: Some Methodological Issues in Rapid Assessment Procedures

This paper opened an international conference on Rapid Assessment Procedures (RAP). The author describes some of the main themes emerging from a decade of RRA and RAP. It is claimed that RAP has "launched some social sciences on a path of methodological re-tooling". RAP is viewed as a new force changing the development planning process and development planning process and development activities at community level. Examples are given of both the powers and the pitfalls of the RAP technique. Two sets of risks are examined: 1) intrinsic - connected with accuracy; representativeness; cultural inappropriateness; subjectivity 2) extrinsic - arising from failing to give RAPs a proper place or weight within a research strategy. It is concluded that RAP techniques complement rather than replace conventional quantitative techniques.