Resources

Initial planning of participatory training courses and workshops often takes place without the involvement of trainers or trainees. 'The agenda is typically set by funding agencies and by the organisations from which trainees will be selected'. There is thus a tension between the 'flexibility that learner-centred training entails and the safety, structure and measurable objectives required by funding organisations'. A process is needed whereby all the 'stakeholders' (including trainers and trainees) can be involved in planning from the start. In particular, the trainers and trainees need ' a space within which to negotiate what the training will be about, how it will proceed and what it can accomplish'.

PRA methods were used in rural Zambia with the aim of enabling communities to identify and prioritise their own District feeder road networks, a function traditionally carried out by outside 'experts'. The paper outlines the approach taken and explains how the approach of community participation in the decision-making process has been expanded, enabling local communities to take on the role of organisation, coordination and management at every stage of the project cycle with minimum external assistance.

The Forestry Cooperation Programme in Vietnam initiated a training process to develop an approach to gender analysis and implementing gender-sensitive programmes at the village level. The report describes a training programme which included two days classroom session on gender concepts and a period of fieldwork using PRA methods for gender analysis. The fieldwork focused on resources, activities, decision-making, social relations (between individuals and institutions) and the impact of project components. PRA methods were used to explore the gender dimension of all these areas. The transect walk revealed insights about women's workload that contradicted verbal discussions with women and revealed issues around what is considered 'difficult' or 'light' work. Another issue that arose was around 'inside' and 'outside' work. The analysis revealed the reasons why women were not fully involved in project activities and suggested ways of institutionalising gender-sensitive project planning. There was particular need for separate PRA activities within women's groups and gender disaggregated monitoring and evaluation. The appendix includes an impact diagram of planting orange trees by a women's group and seasonal analysis done by women-only, men-only and a mixed group.

The paper reviews experiences of participatory planning with pastoralists. It looks at the specific needs of pastoral planning and discusses how planning with pastoralists differs from that in agricultural settings. The paper also discusses some of the problems and limitations of participatory planning, and some of the ethical issues raised in the process. It concludes that most RRA/PRA methods can be useful in planning with pastoralists if applied in a flexible way. However, some concepts used in planning with settled farmers are not suited to mobile herders. Planning with pastoralists requires an approach oriented to social rather than territorial units.

The paper describes the experiences of incorporating participatory methods into strategic development planning in a rural community in Belize, Central America. The SWOT (= Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) technique was used to provide a framework for villagers to identify and assess their community's internal strengths and weaknesses and the external political and economic opportunities and threats facing them. It enabled the villagers to assess their preferred option, citrus expansion, in the light of government policy towards citrus production and trends in world prices for citrus. The paper concludes by discussing some of the limitations of the approach and how it might be improved.

This paper is a critique of conventional (FAO) approaches and practices in land use planning in the Sahelian zone of Africa. The need for land use planning in Africa (particularly the Sahel) is outlined in the first section. The second section describes the evolution of land use planning systems, and the process involved in conventional systems. The fourth section discusses problems with the application of land use planning in Africa, the main critiques being the weakness of a hard systems/top-down approach. these are contrasted with the value of a soft systems/insiders' view approach. The fifth section outlines the principles for participatory land use planning (PLUP), that it: produce advice for farmers in a short space of time, which is easy to understand, and which is widely applicable to varying communities in the Sahel. PLUP should be based primarily on local needs, involving land users in the whole planning process, and providing advice which is not prescriptive but facilitative, and which solves specific problems. PLUP should strengthen village level capacities for land resource analysis and structures for management, combining top-down and grassroots information. Suitable advice should be given in a non-prescriptive way, and feedback and monitoring mechanisms should be established. The final section discusses alternatives to conventional/FAO LUP, and a tentative framework for PLUP is outlined.