Resources

Participatory methods were used during a survey carried out by VetAid project staff at the request of an agro-pastoral community in Daye Chopan District in Afghanistan. The survey aimed to identify decision-making processes in the community, the problems of different wealth groups, physical and cultural restraints, and indigenous technical knowledge. The methods used included wealth ranking, direct matrix ranking, disease ranking, fodder ranking and seasonal calendars. The survey brought to light a severe animal health problem which affected the poorest members of the community most severely. Consultation with community leaders about ways of solving this problem resulted in a project for training livestock keepers to treat, prevent and control the most serious diseases, as ranked by the community.

The United Mission to Nepal (UMN) Animal Health Improvement Project (AHIP) has been training Village Animal Health Workers (VAHW) in Pokhara, Nepal for the last decade. During this time approximately 350 VAHWs have been trained. This article outlines some of the techniques that were used to evaluate the subsequent progress of the trainees. General village-level information was gathered using various participatory methods, including mapping, wealth ranking, production information, labour diagrams, proportional piling and annual disease calendars, transect walks and progeny histories. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out individually with male and female farmers and VAHWs to find out how the VAHWs assessed their own work and how the farmers viewed the service they received.

This paper presents a number of methodological innovations on RRA and PRA in the context of food security. It is interesting in the first instance because it reviews work done as a follow-up to a PRA workshop on household data collection for food policy needs. On the method front, there are examples of mapping, diagramming, ranking and how each method feeds into food policy decisions. An increased use of visual methods is highlighted, and the connected increase in participation in and ownership of the research by local people. Along with this is an increasing importance of qualitative data in food policy decisions. The paper also includes an introduction to and comparison of PRA and RRA. It concludes by commenting that an additional advantage of these methods is that they are cost-effective, but that this may bring a linked disadvantage - that PRA methods are used with the intention of "extracting" information.

This article considers the use of PRA in the general area of health both in determining what peoples' percieved health needs are and in designing interventions. There has been a recent increase of interest in applications of PRA in this area. This paper documents this increase in interest. It considers issues in this respect, the first being that the type of information supplied tends to be localised and cannot form the basis for widespread intervention. Linked with this concern is the inability of professionals such as epidemiologists to accept the validity of the type of information that PRA methods can provide.

This issue of RRA Notes based on a health workshop held at IDS in November 1991 is particularly interesting on the question of taking methods that have been developed in the context of one sector (agriculture) and applying them to another sector - health. The papers consist of a number of case studies and policy angles on the issue of PRA and health. The most methodologically interesting papers are abstracted in their own right (Rifkin, 1992 and Heaver, 1992). Other papers of particular interest are those by LaFond, Cresswell and Moneti.

Section seven of this workshop report focuses specifically on M&E and Project Benefit M&E (PBME). The introduction to this section lists some of the shortcomings, or 'weaknesses', of a "conventional" M&E program and then highlights some of the main 'potential contributions' from RRA methodologies for M&E activities. These include; increasing the cost effectiveness of data collection in areas such as cropping calendars, labour profiles, and crop and input prices; helping in determining cropping parameters and; improving the effectiveness monitoring through the use of diagnostic surveys. In the second section, Mick Howes explores the uses of RRA methodologies to evaluate NGO projects. Using the example of the preliminary study of an irrigation tank renovation project in Sri Lanka, the author provides a useful account of an evaluation approach which employs some RRA methods in determining 'the context', 'the impact, 'project the system' of the NGO's intervention. Methods included mapping techniques, group interviews and household case studies. In the concluding discussion, the author suggests points in which RRA methods may be further employed to improve both the case study evaluation and other participatory forms of evaluation of NGO projects.

The International Conference on Rapid Assessment Methodologies for Planning and Evaluating Health Related Programmes, was organised by the United Nations University, at the Pan American Health Organisation headquarters in 1990, to "explore anthropologically based methodologies for the design, evaluation, and improvement of programmes of nutrition and primary health care". The 42 chapters on Rapid Assessment Procedures [RAP], Rapid Rural Appraisal [RRA], and related approaches deal with a range of research tools. The book is divided in to seven sections: 1. The expanding role of Qualitative research in International Development; 2. Development and applications of RAP procedures in Africa, Asia and the Americas; 3. Community Participation and RRA; 4. Institutionalization of RAP; 5. Training for RAP and other qualitative methods; 6. Bringing RAP to the decision-making realm: effective communication and use; 7. Conference summary, comments, speakers and participants. The overall focus is on planning and evaluation of nutrition and health related intervention programs, but much that is discussed will have a direct bearing on other social development sectors. The stated aim of the volume, of contributing "toward increasing the understanding of RAP and RRA, both as tools of investigation and potentially as integrated components of the community development process itself", highlights this point.