Resources

This paper reports on recent developments in the rural-issue based research programmes of the Gandhigram Rural Institute (GRI) in Tamilnadu, India. This has involved the consolidation of its village community development programmes. Emphasis has shifted towards the needs of special groups, with whom PRA meetings have been held. Some problems with such meetings are noted, including time constraints, tendency for some individuals to dominate, constraints on multi-disciplinary team, problems in group formation and discussions, and little documentation. Three-day PRA workshops were held to derive an action plan by and for villagers. The programme of workshops is outlined, discussing the extent of community participation, the methods used, and the specific projects and proposals which emerged. Strategies to support these processes beyond the workshops are also considered, and some weaknesses acknowledged: little attitude and behaviour change, dependency syndrome and internal conflicts.

This document contains three sections. The first is a paper on the evolution of the forest protection committee programme in Gujarat, India. It documents the history of state forest management, traditional resource use patterns, and forestry/community conflict issues. It details the author's experiences since 1978 of joint forestry management and community organising, leading to the formation of forest protection committees in each village. The forest protection and production activities of foresters and village committees are described. The second paper presents three case studies of joint forest management in three villages. A concluding section discusses the rationale of joint forest management committees and issues requiring further efforts.

This document is a guide to conducting village appraisals, aimed at communities in the UK. It introduces what village appraisals are about, what they can be used for and what the expected benefits may be. How to decide what to do and how to go about it are discussed, with a sample timetable of activities, and sample documents for informing the community about the appraisal, sample questionnaires, lists of funding options and documentary sources.

This report presents the results of a village appraisal questionnaire conducted in a community in northern England. The questionnaire addressed health, education, elderly, transport, housing, services, employment and village life issues in the community. The tabulated responses to the questions on local people's opinions on these issues are presented. There are also short discussions of particular issues such as road safety, litter etc., and of what should be done.

This report gives an overview of the work of ActionAid-Pakistan in 1992. The general section on programme work notes that a process is envisaged where PRA is used to facilitate the initial introduction to a community, leading to preliminary ideas from which to begin immediate entry point activities, to provide a basis for developing the programme further. An example is given of a PRA study whose aims were to elicit information about an area unfamiliar to staff and to develop understanding between ActionAid and the communities. The benefits of undertaking the introductory PRA are elaborated, which included community participation in project choice and facilitation of communication of ActionAid's ideas about proposed projects to villagers. The report includes a description of the programme area, local problems defined in the PRA and the initial programme objectives. The need to develop community management structures and monitoring and evaluation systems to ensure continuing community involvement is elaborated.

This brief article describes the experience of a NGO in India in establishing village development workers in Begunia region. Since the VDWs were Christian, they initially met with resistance. Mapping by low caste tribals was found to be an empowering technique, in which they drew their village as it is now and as they would like it to be. This led to villagers demanding a road be built to their village. Other activities included cleaning the areas round their houses, forming a credit association and securing pensions for the elderly.

This handbook is an exhaustive and practically oriented guide to carrying out evaluations internally and externally. The booklet is divided into five main sections. The first section explains why built in 'naturalistic' everyday evaluation is valuable and introduces the familiarity of it's process. The second section includes a lengthy discussion on the matter of who the evaluation is for and a discussion of the pro's and con's of internal and external evaluation. Section three begins by questioning whether there is a need to do more evaluations and two different approaches to evaluation are highlighted; an open inquiry approach and an audit review approach. The next section examines how evaluation can be built in as part of an institutions daily routine and the idea of a 'culture of evaluation' within an institute. The final section in the booklet is described as a 'toolbox for evaluation purposes' and constitutes different models of evaluation processes, some associated techniques of evaluation i.e. methods of gathering data and some well known methodologies or paradigms of knowledge. The paper concludes with a list of reference material for evaluation.