Resources

Neighbourhood Action Packs have been developed with the help of 'professionals' and other 'local experts', to facilitate decision-making about the neighbourhood. They can be used to work out step by step what has to be done and who is best placed to do it, drawing on the knowledge of 'experts' of both kinds. This guide explains the methodology underlying the approach and some of the applications in the Neighbourhood Action Packs. These concern relations between locals and council or government representatives, education for neighbourhood change in schools, finding out about local needs and resources, doing local research and planning action. The Neighbourhood Action Packs are aimed at 'northern' country settings, but most of the issues involved are common to other settings as well.

This is a selection of letters and memos from FAO offices sent in reply to an IDS request for information on the use of PRA in policy research. Most replies indicate little such application of PRA. the last letter, however, concerns the use of PRA in a fisheries programme in Guinea. 45 fisheries department staff were trained in PRA. This resulted in a series of reports, prepared by national staff without requiring any further outside assistance, being one of the reasons why the reports seem to have had an impact on policy decisions at the ministry level.

Standard methodologies for on farm research usually follow a set pattern of farming systems research and technology transfer. This model assumes that technologies which show promise under researchers' (controlled) conditions are sound, and that non-adoption is due to farmer of socio-economic problems. Farmer technical knowledge is usually ignored. This paper presents a detailed case study based on agricultural anthropological research of farmer experimentation (crop and cultivar choices) among migrant settlers in the Philippines. Farmer soil fertility management is explored in depth, and the implications for on-farm research are drawn out. The first step in the model which derives from the research presented requires learning from and about farmers. Unlike in other research, the results are not used to change preexisting research agendas, but to set them. A further step involves research on a menu of technical alternatives that integrate farmer and researcher concerns and contributions. This implies a view of 'participation' which is a 'two-way street', i.e. going beyond the 'fashionable' recognition that "farmers know best" to a more helpful recognition that "both experts and local people have unique areas of expertise which together provide a better basis for development than either alone".

These comments concern a proposal to undertake a participatory evaluation of an ActionAid programme in India. The comments largely concern aspects of the proposal (not included) which need rethinking, and would be of interest to anyone intending to undertake a participatory evaluation, reflecting, for example, on appropriate mixes of evaluation for 'us' and evaluation by and for 'them', choosing appropriate PRA methods, the need for a flexible approach, whose concept of 'well-being to use in measurement etc.

In most Asian countries, it seems likely that agriculture will have to provide livelihood for much larger populations in the 21st century. To be sustainable and effective, this will require more intensive and complex farming systems, with more farm enterprises and internal linkages. For these farming systems, the balance of advantage shifts from scientists to farmers in managing complexity, in exploiting diversity, in experimenting and in innovation. Recent findings from PRA in India and Nepal indicate that given good rapport, rural people can manifest greater analytical capabilities than outsider professionals have supposed. New roles for outsiders are implied, to be convenors, catalysts and consultants, searchers and suppliers and tour operators. The technology now required and most lacking is methodological - to change personal attitudes, demeanour and methods of interacting - and institutional - to enable scientists and extensionists to play their new roles.

This booklet contains two papers. The first concerns process documentation, a tool for providing an action agency that adopts a new intervention strategy with continuous information about activities in a few project sites and the problems and issues emerging from the field activities. The information provided then becomes a major source for identifying strategies of field implementation, policy directions and can help reorient the agency to a new mode of working with clients. To illustrate, the paper discusses the use of process documentation in efforts by the National Irrigation Administration to organise farmer-users of small scale irrigation systems into viable irrigation associations. The second paper (by J. Volante) discusses the role of participant observation in process documentation research. It discusses the steps and procedures in accomplishing participant observation work during pre-field, fieldwork and writing phases of research, giving tips for good participant observation.

The Adaptive Research Planning Team (ARPT) was established to enhance the productionist approach to farming systems research within the Ministry of Agriculture in Zambia. It has moved towards working with farmer research groups in participatory modes, using R/PRA. Also, a continuous institutional self-review process and the incorporation of nutritionists have led ARPT to assume a farmer advocacy role, concerned with the sustainability of production systems, under the heading 'household food security'. This paper describes these changes and the institutional resistance these changes had to face. Resistance came largely from commodity scientists and senior research management within the Ministry's Research Branch. It is attributed to a productionist orientation and resentment of APRT's preferential treatment by foreign donors. This raises the question of institutional sustainability of the new approaches within the framework of established institutions.