The Nhlangwini Integrated Rural Development Project aims to empower local people, in order that they may improve their quality of life, by helping them develop strategies for addressing basic needs. The Nhlangwini Ward is situated in southern KwaZulu, South Africa. Three workshops were held over a period of three months during 1989. The first examined development problems in the area; the second specifically probed those problems associated with family planning; the third was a development planning workshop, employing visual techniques described in some detail by the paper. Participants were asked to draw local resources by imagining they could view the area from a helicopter. The process of adopting visual techniques has resulted in a change in emphasis - as a result of findings, the integrated development programme has switched approaches with regard to issues facing women, and in terms of its goal setting mechanisms.
In order to obtain detailed information about project participants's daily tasks, particularly in a gender context, 139 calenders were constructed for one specific day. The timeline focused on all the activities undertaken during that day, including agricultural work. Men did more agricultural work than women, although women worked harder overall. Of the 103 agricultural workers surveyed, the men spent more time with livestock, both were involved in nursery work, and men carried out slightly more work in the fields. The other projects studied were water and santitation, women's income generating projects and education. The gender difference in perception of agricultural tasks is noted, which relates closely to time spent talking, resting and in 'reproductive' chores.
In the West African nation of Togo mid-level health workers are being routinely trained to conduct focus-group interviews with mothers of children under five. The intent is to establish qualitative data bases that complement conventional survey data. The authors document the findings of a five-day training programme during which health workers collected data from 81 focus groups (324 mothers). Two unanticipated effects emerged: firstly that the focus group method democratized data gathering by forcing health workers out of their perceived roles as experts and teachers; secondly that by stimulating this shift in roles community competence was enhanced, thereby promoting collaborative programme planning by health workers and target villages. Evidence is given that focus-group discussions paved the way for highly successful education campaigns which dramatically increased child vaccination rates.
Nutritional surveillance, as part of, or complementary to, the famine early warning system in Ethiopia, has been used to collect reports on local food security from community leaders using structured interviews. It is important to assess the extent to which this information reflects the food-related behaviour of the community. Information on various socio-economic variables related to nutrition was collected at the household and community level through interviews in western Shewa Province. The data was compared and generally the correspondence between the two was good. Information topics which might be missed using only the local leader, and ways to improve collection are discussed.
The Ogaden Needs Assessment Study was undertaken as a joint exercise between SCF(UK) and the Pastoral Surveillance Team of the RRC Early Warning and Planning Services. The trigger for the study was the influx into the Ogaden of thousands of returnees from Somalia and concern about capacity of the region to support the growing population. A rural sample survey was carried out using two helicopters. The objective was to establish the nutritional status of children and also to get data on grain production, consumption, sale and exchange, and the prospects of the food economy. The health data was obtained using standard anthropometric procedures, while socio-economic data was gathered by the use of questionnaires on key informants. The survey showed that the combined effects of the collapse of the livestock/grain trade and the continuing burden of the returnee population could result in a food crisis during the following dry season.
In Tanzania, a participatory approach was used to increase community capability to identify poor households and arrange assistance based on community resources. Community-based nutritional status data was used to identify households with severely malnourished children, and community leaders were used to identify poor households. Strengths and weaknesses of participatory methods are discussed with a proposition that their purpose should be community-enabling, rather than only to extract information from communities. The Triple-A cycle developed by UNICEF (Assessment, Analysis and Action) to improve conditions of women and children is adapted to include community assessment, analysis and action. Some case studies from Tanzania are presented with examples from conventional as well as participatory studies.
This report describes the work of two multi-disciplinary teams during June 1992 in Zambia who attempted to find solutions to malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency in the Luapula Valley. As well as identifying diet and food production patterns, the RRA exercise intended to find out more about the views of the local people and the constraints they faced. A variety of RRA techniques were used including semi-structured interviews and wealth ranking, and these showed that poorer groups, particularly female-headed households were more likely to experience food shortages during the year. It was also discovered that women tended to dominate subsistence farming activities, while men were more likely to be the providers of a cash income. A number of recommendations are made to improve household food security, and it is suggested that community-based nutritional surveillance would raise local awareness about malnutrition and its underlying causes.
This paper describes the use of wealth ranking as part of rapid nutritional assessments undertaken between 1988 and 1989 in Darfur, Sudan by an Oxfam nutrition team. The assessments combined two techniques; wealth ranking, a technique to show people's own perceptions of differences in wealth, and conventional weight-for-height measurements of child malnutrition. The objective was to establish whether it was the poorer families who were more likely to have malnourished children. Contrary to expectations, poor nutritional status did not correspond with low wealth status as percieved by the people themselves. It was found that malnourished children were present in both rich and poor families in the three communities surveyed. This suggests that targetting food to households on the basis of socio-economic data may in some cases be inaccurate and wasteful. Wealth ranking was considered by the survey team to be far quicker than household interviews in previous surveys.
RRA can be used as a tool for training development workers to address the issues of "gender and health at grassroots level". Four steps show how various RRA exercises were used for training purposes : 1. Analysis of Difference - trainees are asked to explain the differences in seasonal calendars drawn by separate groups of men and women in Sierra Leone. Their first response was to say the men's maps were simply "better". 2. Health versus Wealth - a problem priority matrix ranking exercise from Bangladesh shows how landless women were more concerned with income than health issues. 3. A Better Understanding - development workers learn to use RRA techniques to explore options in more depth with the community. 4. A Better Response - "the increased empathy with villagers" generated by these RRA activities has allowed workers to explore more sensitive health issues.
Ten focus group sessions were held in Imo State Nigeria to explain the under-utilization of public sector health services. Groups consisted of village women, village men, elementary school teachers, traditional medical practitioners, male civil servants, female civil servants and nursing staff. Rural and urban sites were selected in major sub-cultural zones. Focus groups revealed under-utilization had several causes: limited accessibility of services; high user costs; lack of supplies; uncaring attitudes of staff; nepotism and financial misappropriation. Implications for government action are suggested: strategies for reducing costs; making health care more accessible; improving the quality of services and educating the consumer. The role of the state in health care may need clarification to ensure it complements non-state health care provision. Suggestions are made for further research in which focus group studies can be used throughout.
Two RRAs were carried out by interdisciplinary teams over a period of five weeks in two areas of Benin where malnutrition was considered a problem "this mixture proved effective, permitting not only a comprehensive analysis of the problem, but also comprehensive remedial action". Chapter 1 describes RRA techniques in nutrition and health, Chapter 2 is focused on the methodology employed, Chapter 3 discusses the findings, Chapter 4 compares the RRA results with those obtained from three quantitative studies. In Chapter 5, the methodology used in the two RRAs is reassessed and recommendations are made to researchers and development workers who want to follow a similar approach.
An RRA training exercise was conducted by ActionAid staff in Kambai District, Sierra Leone. Four half days were spent conducting intensive fieldwork, a well-being ranking exercise led to the sub-division of the community into better-off and worse-off members of the community. Ranking exercises with the two groups produced very different results. A graphic example of the differences is given in the ranking of disease importance. (p87 provides illustrations). It is concluded that this method offers an excellent starting point for investigation into health issues and socio-economic conditions.
The article focuses on the collection and use of ethnoveterinary data in the context of community-based animal health care training programmes in Kenya. The programmes ranged from pastoral areas such as Samburu and Pokot to settled farming in Meru and Machakos and were carried out by the Kenya Livestock Programme (KLP) of the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in collaboration with various community-based NGOs. The lessons learned in the programme and directions for the future are also discussed.
An ActionAid programme in the Sanaag region of Somaliland provides basic animal health care to the pastoral communities living in the area. Participatory methods have been used by the project staff to build up a more detailed picture of the herders' lifestyle, particulary management of communal resources, animal husbandry practices and methods of managing disease. This article describes mapping exercises which were carried out to chart the seasonal migration patterns followed by different groups of pastoralists in the region. Information about seasonal migration patterns confirmed that herders are likely to be in a certain area during a particular season of the year. This knowledge assisted with the planning of drug distribution, making it compatible with the herders' needs and seasonal location.
The Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) has used PRA methods in a number of livestock projects in Kenya. This paper describes some of them, which have included the collection of base-line information and design of village animal health care (VAHC) projects, exploring traditional veterinary knowledge and the use of traditional medicines, and monitoring and evaluating animal health and restocking projects. The methods used include mapping, wealth and other types of ranking, interviews and discussion, ethnoveterinary interviews, progeny histories, workshops and diagrams. The paper also discusses some of the potential pitfalls as well as advantages of using PRA methods.