Shortcut and Participatory Methods for Gaining Social Information for Projects

This chapter argues that putting people first in rural development is a necessary condition for good performance of projects. Social information has a key role to play in this. In conventional development approaches, things have been put before people, poorer people have been neglected, conventional social investigation methods have not been cost-effective, and information is owned by outsiders. The pitfalls and biases of conventional methods are discussed in depth. Rapid and participatory methods have potential to avoid these defects. Five basic principles common to RA are outlined: optimising trade-offs, offsetting biases, triangulation, learning with and from rural people, and learning rapidly and progressively. The menu of methods is reviewed, including secondary data review, direct observation, do-it-yourself, key indicators, semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews, diagrams etc. PRA is introduced as being less extractive, more participatory, involving visual sharing and role reversals. The paper ends with a discussion of potentials and dangers in the use and development of R/PRA.