Resources

This document reports on a 24-hour exercise held in a village in India as an appraisal for a watershed project. Areas identified for discussion with villagers were time consciousness, future development plans, culture and social life and land use pattern. The paper reports the findings relating to each topic, such as the histories of the village's founding by migrants and past livelihoods; dissatisfaction at not having been granted title deeds for cultivated land and housing; demand for improved irrigation and education facilities; religion, marriage practices, diet, social activities; changing agricultural practices, crop variety preferences and food availability. The paper contains comments on the importance of not lecturing to villagers and of women's participation in diagramming and discussion. It ends with reflections on the benefits of the exercise for 'learning to unlearn', and the role expectations of assistance may have in facilitating discussion.

This reports a study of the economic and productive roles of women in two villages in Egypt, which aimed to provide a needs assessment of the types of training and information local women require. Data was collected through PRA by a multi-disciplinary team. The report is divided into three sections: one on each village and a selection of tables and diagrams. Each village report provides information (often either focusing on women or gender disaggregated) on land ownership and cropping practices, housing and infrastructure, social structure and fertility, education and health. The main focus is on economic activities. This is done through livelihood analysis, daily activity charts, pie charts of income sources, and seasonal calendars. Recommendations for enhancing economic activities are made.

This short report written by the Research and Policy Programme on behalf of ACORD examines three different areas of the agency's work in Africa; i) conflict resolution, ii) monitoring and evaluations systems and iii) work on gender. In a workshop that was held in accordance with Birmingham University on the theme of Development in Conflict a number of important issues and decisions emerged in relation to ACORD's continued work in conflict ridden areas. These included; firstly that ACORD's ability to respond to armed conflict or turbulent situations will depend on improving the quality and relevance of it's work in the North. Secondly, that there is a need for greater anticipation and preparedness of conflict situations and thirdly, that decisions to continue work in turbulent areas should reside with project staff and not head office. Lastly, that the nature of turbulent situations requires teams to be able to respond flexibly. In relation to the M&E systems utilised by ACORD, the emphasis was on strengthening the capacity of programmes to use participatory techniques in order to involve communities more in the monitoring of their own work. The findings of each workshop is briefly discussed. In relation to the work of ACORD on gender issues, moreover, a Gender Analysis Matrix designed by UNIFEM is discussed as a tool which is utilised to identify the changing roles of men and women in response to programme activities.

This paper makes the case for conducting Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) and sets out a methodology for conducting them. PPAs have the following principal elements: a poverty profile (which analyses the depth, social and cultural nature, gender disparities and geographic spread of poverty); a review of current government policies relating to poverty; an overview of NGOs and community-based organisations working towards the alleviation of poverty; an analysis of the safety nets (both government programs and sociocultural mechanisms) in place; and, based on the above, a suggested country strategy of priority measures the government should take to reduce poverty. The section on methodology discusses interviews, focus groups, participant observation, institutional assessment, mapping, ranking and triangulation as important techniques. The paper concludes with a timetable for setting up and conducting a PPA.

This is a training report of the organic matter management network (OMMN)in Kenya and Tanzania, involved in promoting sustainable agricultural resources management approaches in partnership with farmers. A training/ workshop was held with the broad objectives to build participatory planning skills and to facilitate behavioural and attitudinal change in individual participants which in turn facilitates the formation of a divisional level forum to enable them tackle micro level natural resource management problems in the Tiriki district.

The first part of this MSc dissertation discusses participatory and action-research approaches. The second and third parts discuss the various efforts of integrating farmers into agricultural research, and their implications for varying degrees of participation and the usefulness of the research outcomes. The fourth part deals with participatory appraisal and participatory learning approaches. It tackles the question of whether PRA will be distorted and abused by powerful institutions. A fifth part looks at gender planning methodology, and presents a framework of gender analysis, adult education, consultation and group formation to incorporate strategic gender needs into the development process. The dissertation identifies a difficulty of participatory processes to be sustained beyond initial needs assessments, due to donorÆs and governmentsÆ demands, organisational cultures of implementing agencies, and lack of good training. It argues that participatory processes can only be sustained in the presence of functioning grassroots organisations and their connecting networks at higher levels.

This paper presents the experiences and lessons obtained in conducting on-farm participatory research in North Omo, Ethiopia, by an foreign NGO. It highlights how PRA techniques are used in the on-farm trials programme. The objective of the project Farmers' Research Project, is to raise incomes of resource-poor households by improving agricultural technology. Farmers' participatory research is the key approach adopted. To achieve this, the agricultural and extension staff on the project were trained in participatory approaches to enable them incorporate farmers participatory research (FRR) into their own work programmes. The paper discusses how farmers are involved in the decision making process about the research which in itself, is an innovation of farming systems research. The paper mentions that one of the ways farmer participation is achieved is through conducting on-farm trials by going through the stages of diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation, using PRA. Each stage is discussed in the paper. In conclusion, the paper mentions the mutual respect of both staff and farmers as experts, close contacts and cross visits as approaches that played an important role in raising the level of understanding.