The Nhlangwini Integrated Rural Development Project aims to empower local people, in order that they may improve their quality of life, by helping them develop strategies for addressing basic needs. The Nhlangwini Ward is situated in southern KwaZulu, South Africa. Three workshops were held over a period of three months during 1989. The first examined development problems in the area; the second specifically probed those problems associated with family planning; the third was a development planning workshop, employing visual techniques described in some detail by the paper. Participants were asked to draw local resources by imagining they could view the area from a helicopter. The process of adopting visual techniques has resulted in a change in emphasis - as a result of findings, the integrated development programme has switched approaches with regard to issues facing women, and in terms of its goal setting mechanisms.
The purpose of this book is to outline the role of sociological analysis in the design of agricultural investment projects. The paper deals with a wide-range of disciplinary approaches including rural sociology, anthropology, farming systems diagnosis, "reserche/developpement", poverty alleviation, people's participation, gender analysis, common property resources, rapid rural appraisal and social soundness analysis. The paper is intended to assist managers to make informed choices between different types of sociological surveys and data-gathering methods. [Abstract based on mimeo version]
This paper considers the work of the Adaptive Research Planning Team (ARPT) in Zambia in the light from the conventional "transfer of technology" paradigm to a "farmer first" approach. It deals with the central issues facing ARPT in its move towards increasing levels of farmer participation in the adaptive research work of provincial teams. It aims to establish what participation means to APRT, why APRT should pursue participation and how this can be achieved. The central problem facing APRT is reconciling its push for increased participation in agricultural research with the "top down" approach characterising much of the rest of APRT. The paper indicates that the "farmer first" approach should be more widely adopted throughout development work, not just in agriculture - in other words "farmer first" marks a new paradigm for all development work.
In October 1992, IIED conducted a PRA Training session for PATECORE and its partners, whose approach to land use management is widely known for its innovation and success. They operate in the Bam Province, Burkina Faso. This paper is a brief note, concerning the introduction of certain elements of PRA into their activities, notably network mapping and venn diagrams.
It argues that even the most elaborate social surveys in the development field are one-sided, in that they answer their sponsors' questions, and not those of the people surveyed. Rapid Rural Appraisal has no methodological sophistication in which to cloak this one-sidedness. This is no disadvantage, however, for not only does RRA focus attention on an important problem, it also provides the means to solve it. Several 'quick and dirty' surveys are possible for the price of, and in the time taken by, one 'long and clean' survey. The opportunity is thus opened up for a more interactive style of applied social research, incorporating a diversity of political feedback at the earliest possible stage in the development planning process.
The key theme of the paper is the inherent capacity of farmers for analysis and the problems encountered as a result of ignoring this characteristic. This lack of acknowledgement has undermined and impinged upon the effectiveness of many rural development programme. Drawing on experience gained from a Watershed Management Programme run by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, this paper aims to set the record straight. Its particular concern is the generation of suitable technologies, through participation, which benefit farmers and rural communities. It portrays farmers as analysts, and describes various methods which have evolved with regard to rainfall analysis and crop planning and impact studies. Participatory mapping-types and applications are discussed: resource maps, watershed maps, thematic maps, social maps, base line maps, and monitoring and impact maps.
The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) has worked with a number of village communities in a variety of social and agroecological contexts - tribal areas, semi-arid areas and relatively well-endowed areas of the state of Gujarat. This paper describes the AKRSP approach to PRA and planning. It looks at its methodology, the objective of the planning exercise, who should participate, informing villagers about the programme, and the detail of the programme. In terms of the latter, base map preparation, transect walks, equity aspects, focus groups, village meetings, management plans and community proposals are discussed. In conclusion, the paper points to a number of problems with PRA. Problems identified include: an excessive amount of data being collected; a lack of an effective method for filtering data; as well as a possible bias toward physical resource analysis. Points for trainers are also given.
As part of the UNICEF relief programme to Angola, a technical team carried out a ranking exercise upon which this paper reports. It took place between December 1991 and June 1992. Ranking is defined here as a process of priority ordering, in this case administrative areas in relation to the need for assistance. It used the knowledge that informants possessed from the country, at a national level, as well as from the provinces. No quantitative data were used. The ranking technique was expected to provide a rational framework to deal with time and resource constraints. The paper looks at the ranking process at a central and provincial level, as well as looking at the limitations and potential of the approach. It concludes that ranking was useful with regards to outlining the humanitarian issues in Angola; however, its efficiency depends very much on the choice of information source.
This paper discusses the methods of collecting information in a field study carried out in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) a suburb of Salvador. The study was part of a training exercise for students of the "International Course for Primary Health Care Managers at District Level in Developing Countries" based in Italy. The study also aimed to explore the potential for Primary Environmental Care and identify ways by which the local health district could support squatter communities. A rapid appraisal was carried out in three squatter communities. Secondary data was analysed, life history interviews were conducted, a "risk map" was drawn in which local participants geographically located problems, focus groups and ranking, key informant interviews, ten institutions with an interest in environmental issues were interviewed, and a feed-back meeting was held for all community members. It is concluded that RRA is well suited to study fast-changing environments, a potential danger of the exercise is taken to be undue expectation-raising of the local community. Finally "microplans" are introduced as a possible means of making RRA action oriented. Five pages are devoted to illustrations arising from the exercises.
A brief summary by bullet points of lessons from the Dry Zone project. The last page is table of PRA steps taken, the principles applied, the tools used and the important learning experiences.
Newsletter informing about World Neighbors' preliminary phase in the implementation of a community based natural resource management programme in Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia.
A pilot course on project identification was run for 24 heads of local government departments in several states in Northern Nigeria. The first course was based on fieldwork and focussed on applying RRA techniques for the purpose of project identification. This report evaluates the training programme from a methodological perspective, pointing out mistakes that were made, such as using a questionnaire instead of a checklist. The analysis also shows the importance of working out participants' specific training needs and developing a model to meet these. PRA activities are not described, but some findings are given
This article describes a three day workshop on PRA conducted by the NGO SPEECH in Tamil Nadu, based in a village where SPEECH was working. The main purpose of the PRA was to discuss the rehabilitation of an irrigation tank network, while introducing the concepts of PRA to the participants. Several techniques were taught and practised: timelines, participatory mapping, modelling, seasonal calendars. One of the group activities documented was the construction of a matrix of six trees according to eight criteria, illustration included. There was initial resistance to the discussion of trees in gardens, but apparently good discussion on the growth and suitability of different trees both near homesteads and on communal lands, along the bunds and on wastelands. The general concensus at the end of the workshop was positive, in terms of the use of PRA in daily planning activities.
This article describes in broad terms lessons learned by the Hope International Development Agency (HIDA) Social Forestry Program in Andrah Pradesh. PRA has been useful for several reasons; encouraging village participation, understanding connections between problems encountered in the villages, and ensuring the involvement of women and their inclusion in forestry projects. HIDA has used a film produced by MYRADA project and developed a slide presentation for use in community discussions.
A rapid assessment survey of a representative sample of tanks was conducted to provide an overview of the irrigation component of the Anuradhapura Dry Zone Agriculture Project (ADZAP). The study traced the development of each sample tank from the pre-project situation to head works construction and later downstream development and work. The questionnaire used was based on rapid assessment questionnaires and covered four general topics : i) Tank construction, ii) The settlement process, iii) The agricultural economy, iv) Irrigation operation and management The questionnaire was compiled through field observations and group interviews normally comprising 5-10 farmers. Farmer input was considerable and the tank selection was in the majority of cases (74%) came from rural development societies. A key policy implication arising from the study was the need for greater farmer participation at the implementation stage i.e settlement and involvement of farmers prior to or while investments are made in the system. A participatory approach to such system development may outpace and outproduce a construction-oriented approach.