Resources

This report (based largely on the discussions held at the 5th Asia Forest Network meeting held at Surajkund, India in 1996), synthesises the experiences of community forestry management in the region.
The report begins by outlining the main trends in forest policy in each country.
The elements considered necessary for transition of forest management to local communities are examined, including enabling policies, the need for reorientation of Forestry Agencies and ways of enhancing development support agency programs.
The political and economic factors which undermine community involvement in forest management are considered, including inequities in resource flows whereby national goverenments tend to regard forest regions as resource banks to be used according to state requirements and also problems of delegating authority to the administrative village level which may not reflect interest user groups.
Finally, the strategies and activities planned to be taken in the future are outlined for each participating country.

A report of the process and findings of a PRA carried out as part of a World Bank funded project to prevent STD and AIDS infection in several communities of Nigeria's Plateau State.
Issues explored with community members using PRA techniques are documented including, perceptions of health needs, community knowledge, behaviours and practices related to STD/AIDS and sources of health information available to communities and their impact. The report describes how dissemination meetings of findings provided opportunities for communities to be actively involved in deciding priorities for action and how they should be implemented.
The article outlines how the PRA process was useful not only in terms of improving program design but also in that it led to new partnerships among various stakeholder institutions.

This article briefly points to those situations in which the use of RRA might be more appropriate than PRA.

This dissertation argues that the Ghana Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) was successful methodologically, in terms of obtaining the views of the poor concerning their priorities and strategies to combat poverty. However, in spite of the exercise receiving wide international attention, the results have yet to be accepted as a relevant data source within Ghana itself, owing to a strong preference for statistical data in social policy research.

The book analyses development NGO responses to rapid global change and provides practical suggestions to NGOs for improving effectiveness while maintaining values and promoting participation of the poor and marginalised.