Resources

This report provides an assessment of the extent of and changes in poverty in Kenya during the '80s and early '90s. It uses data from different sources and of different kinds, including was a Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) and a Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS). Interestingly, in three out of five districts the results yielded by the two approaches were almost identical. The PPA provided critical insights on a number of issues - people's perceptions of the extent and causes of poverty, the status of women, the extent of and reasons for low school enrolment, the reasons for not using public health facilities and the ways in which poor people cope with food insecurity and drought. Methods used included social mapping and wealth ranking, interviews and focus groups discussions. The different chapters present the findings of the study, focusing on economic development and poverty; revitalising the rural economy; structural transformation in agriculture; social sector spending (education and health); food security and nutrition; and targeted programmes and institutional factors. A strategy of programmes and policies for poverty reduction is suggested.

The paper presents an overview of gender-related issues in Kenya, covering gender roles, income generation and management, decision-making etc. The analysis is very sensitive to gender relations shaping power relations both within and without the household. The author then, goes on to consider how World Neighbors has worked dealing with these sensitive issues, making reference to a number of examples, and finally mentioning the lessons learned.

The first of the two main sections to this report is a resume of the training programme and schedule. The main second section consists of a series of eight papers and annexes which are aimed at providing background theory to the subject of community development. The themes they cover are: peoples participation in rural development; community organisation - concepts and principles; women and rural development; community, change agents and their organisational strategies; formation, constitution and functioning of Mathar Sangams; initiating community action for development; panchayati Rai System; and participatory watershed management. This last focuses on a specific programme which used PRA to discuss issues relating to canals and identify a management committee who could take the process further.

This document is a detailed account of six poor women collected using a variety of PRA methods, viz., time lines, wealth mapping, pocket chart voting, seasonality diagrams among others. The nature, causes and the extent of poverty as perceived by these six poor women and the actions taken by them to cope with poverty are described at great length. The report makes more broad as well as specific policy recommendations to reduce poverty. The report includes annexes with tables and diagrams.

This paper follows from the recognition that meeting food needs requires that women's roles in production and food systems are taken into account. International agricultural research centres have paid little attention to the demands of domestic post-harvest technologies, being given a low priority in the determination of research agenda. Gender-specific varietal preferences for seed or stock selection have also been ignored. In addition to methodological weaknesses built into current research programming, insufficient attention has been paid to the institutional barriers which inhibit the exchange of experience and information between women and agricultural researchers and extension agents. The paper begins by suggesting why gender matters. The second section discusses seed technology and gender issues. The third section raises questions of methodology (discussing socio-economic research, farming systems research and policy research). [This section may be of particular interest to PRA collection users]. Further sections discuss research-extension linkages, and the measurement of inputs. The final three sections are case studies of the impact of technical change in agriculture on women in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This is the report of a study designed to reach some broad conclusions about social, economic and cultural change in rural and peri-urban communities of mainland Tanzania. It draws on previous accounts and on group interviews and other RRA methods. Substantive findings concern the responses of members of rural communities to the process of economic liberalisation and their reception of constitutional reforms leading to the adoption of a multi-party political system. Regarding methodology, the study confirmed the value of combining existing literature with fresh fieldwork, although problems of generating generalisable conclusions from location-specific material are acknowledged. Focus-groups were found to be particularly useful, when combined with the possibility of drawing on the long-term field experience of researchers.