Resources

This report documents the 1998 village immersion programme (VIP) for World Bank staff organised by the Gandhigram Rural Institute (GRI) in Tamil Nadu, India. The objectives of the programme were to provide an opportunity to the bank staff to immerse themselves in the social reality of villagers by staying in the villages, listening to the villagers, particularly the disadvantaged and women, and learn from them of their concerns and issues that help or hinder their development; and to understand the potential of poor communities to improve their living conditions when they are provided with support and opportunities for development by the government, NGOs and CBOs (community based organisations). The programme was organised in four different villages from the 4th to the 11th of December 1998. The major components of the programme were: orientation on the programme; actual immersion in the villages; visit to NGOs; interaction with the District Collector and development officials; and reflections on the VIP. The report presents some guidelines for immersion; the activities of the VIP; and reflections and observations of facilitators, Bank staff and villagers on the VIP. It also includes details on placements and the programme schedule.

This information pack includes five documents on institutionalisation of participatory methods and approaches form the Association for Better Land Husbandry (ABLH) , Kenya. The first document reports on the learning process and results of a study and workshop process examining the application of an innovative approach to the scaling-up and institutionalisation of participatory approaches in Kenya, conducted 1996 in Butula Division, Busia District, and Ndia Division, Kirinyaga District. The report includes a background to the study and the objectives ABHL in the institutionalisation of participation; summaries of the main learning point in each Division; poster presentations from the two Divisions outlining the process of analysis and conclusions; and appendices presenting the primary data form each Division. The second document reports on the proceedings of a Workshop on institutionalisation of participatory methodologies held in Nairobi, Kenya 1997. The workshop brought together government departmental staff from the divisional level, farmers from the ABHL core target areas, and NGOs with the relevant experiences. The objectives of the workshop were to share and analyse experiences of attempts to institutionalise participatory methods; to develop recommendations which will assist the institutionalisation of participatory methods; to develop individual and institutional commitments for a way forward; and to create an environment which encourages open sharing of ideas. The other three documents included are briefing notes 5, 6 and 7 from ABHL, with interviews with three different institutions on their views and application of participatory methods in different organisations. No. 5 focuses on the case study of the Soil and Water Conservation Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture (Kenya); no. 6 looks at CARE- Kenya; and no. 7 on the Intermediate Technology development Group.

This paper looks specifically at how a framework that was developed to measure the level of community participation within district health projects can be implemented. The introductory section describes the evolution of the development of the framework designed by Rifkin et al in 1988. The framework basically centres on the identification of five main factors that Rifkin believed to most strongly influence the breadth of community participation. These were identified as: a) needs assessment b) leadership c) organisation d) resource mobilisation and e) management. The article goes on to describe how research was carried out to find out how health programme staff utilised the framework to assess community participation levels. A major reason for this research was to assess exactly how valuable a tool this framework is by asking project managers to apply it in their own specific contexts. The article gives a detailed description of the setting in which the research took place before discussing the study procedure in some detail and briefly reporting the results. The main strengths and weaknesses of the framework were highlighted and the implications of these findings discussed in some detail.