Resources

Discussion of a technique to aid problem analysis. The exercise enable participants to work through issues and identify the root causes of problems, at the same time learning the inter-relationships between socio-economic, political and environmental spheres.

This paper documents the experience of the NGO Christian Outreach, working in Cambodia on a programme of community development. The programme is focussed on awareness change and works with a number of participatory techniques to animate change.
The paper draws attention to some of the difficulties of a truly open-ended conversation. It picks up on a simple model for describing thinking, called the "six thinking hat model", created by Edward De Bono. This model has been widely used in both adult and child education in the USA and Europe, and in management workshops for multinational companies. The paper describes the adoption of the model for community development in Cambodia. It describes the basic model, it's use for staff capacity-building, and its use in rural village communities as a framework for open-ended conversations. It concludes that the model is a useful tool for ensuring comprehensive analysis of problems, creating a framework for conversations and preventing conflict.

Calls for "process projects" in the 1980s led to the development of a body of knowledge about process approaches and the implementation of innovative programs and projects. During the 1990s the focus has moved on to the narrower subject of beneficiary participation and much potential learning about how to promote development is being lost. This paper reviews the notion of process approaches and produces a conceptual framework that synthesizes these ideas. It then uses this framework to analyse 12 years of experience of a NORAD-financed IRDP in Sri Lanka. The findings point to the continued relevance of deepening the theory and practice of process approaches in development.

Draft of a guide due out in January 2000 which is designed to help organisations recognise their own potential and decide for themselves how to best address the challenges they face. It uses participatory methods and tools to enable organisations to assess their strength and weaknesses, reflect on their performance, learn from experience, identify priorities for program development and strengthen their organisational capacity. It is not a recipe to follow, but aims to give an understanding of the underlying concepts of capacity building and participatory action learning so that the reader can adapt the exercises and methods presented, or invent new ones.

In this literature review, the author, in describing the origins of participatory approaches and methods, discusses their application in animal health services and research in developing countries. The focus is on dryland areas of Africa particularly pastoral and agropastoral areas of the Greater Horn of Africa. The author reports that most experiences with veterinary uses of participatory approaches and methods remains with community based animal health projects and have proved to be more effective in comparison to more conventional approaches to service delivery. He also contends that while participatory methods are being used increasingly by epidemiologists, in general, there is a continued reliance on conventional survey tools such as questionnaires. He is of the view that as veterinary epidemiology has a history of borrowing from other disciplines it may be helpful to consider participatory methods including quantitative and qualitative perspectives and enhance the understanding of animal health and well being.