The Value of Participatory Appraisals

As the module, “How to Plan a Health-Related Engineering Project,” explained, health projects need to address communities rather than individuals alone. When you carry out an engineering project in a rural setting in the developing world, basic ethnographic and demographic information about that particular community may not be readily available. When there is insufficient time to conduct a complete study, developers and humanitarians use rapid assessment techniques, variously called “rapid rural appraisals,” “focused ethnography,” “rapid field assessments,” “participatory action research,” or “participatory rural appraisals.” This module refers to such approaches as participatory rural appraisals or PRAs. The common feature of most techniques in use today is some adherence to a participatory, or “grassroots,” approach, one that involves the entire community in the assessment process so that outsiders as well as insiders can improve the quality of their communication and interactions.

Even rapid assessments can yield critical information about local needs, implementation obstacles, prospects for sustainability, and so on, as well as quick evaluations of program compliance and performance. A Participatory Rural Appraisal builds two things: (1) A consensus to set priorities and to define available intrinsic resources (skills, knowledge, labor, land, other locally-obtainable resources at hand) and necessary extrinsic resources (materials, expertise, equipment not locally available); (2)Community capacity by teaching skills and techniques so that a community can work together to better identify, articulate and eventually solve its own problems.

The mere presence of your team often implies (to the community) an offer of assistance, a “promise,” when in fact the actual purpose of the visit may be to assess community capacity or the feasibility of various interventions in that locale. Your team should always explicitly ask for the community’s permission and participation. Participation by everyone in a community is the key to the development process where community members themselves set the priorities and work toward the identification of resources to accomplish their goals. Community members are more than merely the key actors, they are the actual owners of the information they will generate. The community will present, define, analyze, and determine their preferences and priorities, a prerequisite for “ownership” and sustainability. Participatory rural appraisal encourage the participants’ creativity and emphasizes focus group discussions, interviews, illustrations, mapping, diagramming and modeling with local materials. When you use this approach, your process should be one that could be described with the following terms:

Your team will act as facilitators using participant observation; in other words, you will act in an impartial manner. While your team members will get involved in the PRA, they will only guide or channel the discussion. Team members must never judge, prod or misrepresent the impressions or conclusions of the community participants. While facilitators actively look, listen and pose questions, their responsibility is to observe, record faithfully, and help focus (due to time constraints) the process whenever it gets off-track. Again, the community both generates and owns the information. Apart from guiding the process, external views or conceptions of the facilitators are not relevant at the community input stage.

During the PRA, your team will gather local, social, historical, and technical data. Often spatial and social data are collected from mapping exercises while historical and technical information are acquired from discussions and interviews. For example, the community members identify various facilities and resources within their community and illustrate the spatial and social dimensions by constructing a map, either on the ground or on paper. Maps might contain physical features such as forests, residential and community structures, rivers or creeks, water sources, latrines, agricultural fields, etc. However, during the mapping exercise, social data such as population size, household demographics, wealth/income, and so forth can be generated as well. Discussions and interviews can be used to develop a history of the community. Ranking or scoring techniques can be incorporated to gauge relative values or amounts, or order to come up with priorities for community development.

How to Get Started with a Pre-Project Workshop

Field assessments are only carried out after practice sessions and refinement of the techniques and survey instruments in a Pre-Project Workshop. Practicing your introductory meeting and your final meeting in advance will allow you to begin and end your visit with your best manners and best communication on display. Most intercultural mistakes are made when people are unprepared and are trying to “wing it.” Rehearse the small steps so the big project will go smoothly. “There’s never a second chance to make a good first impression,” the saying goes. Divide your workshop group into teams. Each team should consist of at least three to four members each, with a facilitator and a recorder designated for each exercise.

You should practice the introductory community-wide meeting that you will hold upon arrival in the community. You should designate one person to play the local contact person, who will convene the meeting to explain the purpose of the visit and enable you to ask permission (for a second or third time if you have made preliminary trips to the village before conducting the PRA) to conduct the assessment. Your team should practice the following:

Practice asking whether the activities of the community will permit such a process or whether some activities have to occur at different times in order to reach all groups, and so on. Don’t assume their schedules and participation will automatically suit the patterns you’re familiar with. You may want also to review the module How to Conduct a Meeting in Intercultural Settings to sharpen your negotiating skills.

Your team may also want to practice a final community meeting, called (in PRA terms) a Facilitation Session (see Section 1.7). This final community meeting is very important as an opportunity to summarize the assessment, create action items, identify those persons responsible for each action item, and so on. The details of the facilitation session are described later in this reading. Before or at this meeting, you should ask the community to select a community liaison (person or committee) to coordinate the team’s next visit and future activities (once a decision has been made to return to that community).

Socio-Demographic Levels of Information and Communication Techniques

Generally, your team will try to find out information at three socio-demographic levels:

Naturally, information from one level may overlap information from another level since individuals have many social roles and responsibilities. You may find personal opinions at any and all levels. Nevertheless, if you acquire high quality information from each level, you will ensure more participation in both the assessment and the project. Studies have consistently shown that unless genuine efforts are made to provide a setting conducive to the free expression of ideas from all age groups and status levels, the information content and quality may not reflect accurately differences that are associated with gender and status. Remember that the goal is for inclusive, comprehensive participation. While equal participation may not be achievable in all settings, when information is obtained from several levels and settings, it will more accurately represent the collective views and perceptions of the community. Every effort must be made to assure anonymity for those requesting it.

Since the goal is to include all who wish to participate, your team must be aware of prevailing activity patterns and general personal time budgets. In rural areas, human societies engage in division-of-labor by sex: for example, women may collect water in the early morning while men do other things. Other activity patterns are seasonal. Traditional activity patterns by status, age and gender must be taken into consideration when planning town meetings as well as discussion and interview sessions.

Another important consideration is the composition of your team. The team should have both men and women. Traditional societies have a rigid division of labor by gender with separate “spheres” for men and women. Depending on the local context, it may be a good strategy to have team members who are men conduct sessions with local men and women team members conduct sessions with women.

Two common techniques are commonly used to obtain information: (1) Focus Group Discussion; and (2) Key Informant Discussion/Interviews. You can form a discussion group based upon a representative sampling of the people who live there or upon common categories such as gender (male or female), residence (bush farm or village); or age (for example, >50; adult; teenager; children), and so on. Groups of teens or children should also be separated by gender.

At a Focus Group Discussion or meeting, your team’s focus group discussion leader, acting as moderator, will introduce a topic for all the participants to discuss while another member of your team records the information. An example might be a focus group discussion composed of adult women who are asked to discuss their perspectives on breastfeeding. The basic feature of this “interest-group” type of focus group discussion is that all the discussants share some criteria of membership (such as gender, marital status, or age) and that those not from that group are excluded. It is obvious if one focus group discussion composed of men was asked to discuss a certain topic, it would be necessary to form a separate focus group discussion of women to get their ideas on that topic as well.

Key informant discussion is another common technique. Key informants are chosen to be interviewed on the basis of their identification (by self and others) as content experts, or specialists, who possess specific knowledge about a particular subject. Usually, these key informants are asked specific questions and interviewed alone to ensure that they are free to express their opinions. Structured interviews (i.e., questionnaires) can be used if the ethnography is already well known. Otherwise, when little is known, unstructured or semi-structured interviews work better. For example, in these situations you can frame questions that are open-ended questions to generate a free-recall listing such as: “The foods we grow are…?” “How” questions and “when” questions are useful for gaining information about processes and sequences of events or actions.

In every case, your team will need basic demographic and political/governmental data, before you undertake a project. You can obtain these data in one of several ways. You may have to collect data yourself, but they may be available in another group’s recent PRA or in the records of the local parish or non-governmental organization, such as the Peace Corps. Since perceptions and opinions will vary based upon demographic variables such as age, status, gender, etc., it is important to know: (1) how representative is the profile of each group described in a report; and (2) the personal attributes for each participant in each group. Most important are age, gender, schooling/education, vocation and marital status. You may also need to know what governmental units have authority over resources, such as water or fishing rights. You should know which governmental unit or agency will have control over a pump or bridge that you build and which regulations may apply. These variables allow interpretation was well as comparison with other communities.

Community Level Background: Settlement Patterns, Census and Social Roles

Before the team’s first extensive visit, find a local contact person who is both a cultural broker and a qualified expert/interpreter. Have extensive discussions with your local contact person so that all parties are clearly communicating and establishing a relationship of trust before commencing any local participatory activities. The local contact person may be paid for services to the team. Generally, your team will spend the first few days of its first extended visit acquiring background information at the community level.

These activities build community consensus and participation. This background material is essential as the social matrix. It not only will help you interpret other information but also will help you prepare for facilitating the final project selection session that you will hold after you complete the community assessment. At the end of the reading are some typical PRA activities. Choose your team’s activities according to the project purpose and objectives delineated in the project’s logical framework statement. Again, you can see examples of a related mapping technique in the free .pdf publication, Learning Local Environmental Knowledge: A Volunteer’s Guide to Community Entry (Information Collection and Exchange Publication No. M0071, Peace Corps 2002) and download it at http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/publications/culture/.

Community Leadership: Community Social Map with Topographic Features, Human Structures, etc. Usually, the first order of business at a community-wide meeting is to: (1) identify and diagram the community leadership and political organization; and (2) construct a community social map. The purpose of this exercise is to identify at the outset the hierarchy and involve the community in being “proactive.” In other words, they should take charge and start to work together as a cohesive unit to define their community and situate important social and natural resources on the map. This mapping exercise may take some time and should be scheduled when the entire community can take part. Team members need not direct the mapping and can even step out of the scene.

Your team should keep a copy of the final report as a permanent record of the exercise and a copy should also be left with the community. You should think carefully about what form would be most useful. You might want to send back laminated copies of maps, for example, that could withstand a great deal of handling and local storage conditions. Local people might value a printed technical report as a “prestige” possession, but they might not be able to use it easily if the literacy level is low. A more simple form might be much more useful to them.

Transect Map Discussion. While the community social map is being constructed, other people in your group can be doing other things. One useful activity is for a team member or members to conduct a transect map discussion with a community leader or an elder. This discussion will help you to gain insight into the history of the community, such as why it is located where it is, and to gather specific knowledge regarding local concepts of topography, soil types, drainage, and so forth. This discussion will give special attention to the views and insights of the key informant(s) and confirm her or his status in the community. If the community subsequently identifies needs for a well, latrines, etc., the transect map discussion can be used to augment the community social map. The transect mapping is accomplished by walking around the community and asking the key informant questions about the history, topography, soil, etc. The team member draws a rough map as they progress, noting the features identified by the key informant. Again, you may want to look at Learning Local Environmental Knowledge: A Volunteer’s Guide to Community Entry, described above.

Household Demographic Composition/Land Tenure System. You must determine what kind of information is relevant to your team’s project. Either concurrent with the community social map exercise, or subsequently, the team can collect information on the household composition for each residence. On a permanent copy of the map, each residence is assigned a number. Collect demographic parameters for each house. This census information is very important—especially if the project evaluation criteria require metrics based on population parameters (for example, disease prevalence, infant mortality rate, and so on). Data should be collected on total number of occupants, ages, gender, occupation (if a specialist lives there), whether the household has a water filter, and so on. Likewise, during or after the completion of the community social map, your team will solicit information on property rights and land tenure, if applicable. How did each household acquire the property? What rights accrue? Can one sell it? Is it assignable to heirs? Where are the communal properties, structures, and so on? This information can be gathered using structured or unstructured interviews.

Diagram of Seasonal Activities/Division of Labor/Daily Time Budgets. Upon the completion of the community social map and its attendant census, the community will be asked to explain their annual activities and create a calendar. The product of these exercises is twofold: (1) it generates implicit community consensus about relative contributions and workloads, thereby introducing the subject of community needs (the next assignment) and the context within which to interpret those perceived needs as well as the availability of local intrinsic resources; and (2) the process identifies specialists with particular information from which to put together more targeted focus group discussion and key informant discussion sessions, if necessary.

This exercise can be completed by asking someone to draw a diagram (circles work well for annual cycles) on the ground or can be recorded on paper by a team member as the community explains the typical seasonal cycle. When the participants are defining the annual round, your team should act as moderators soliciting and recording information on the social roles of elders, genders, children, etc. Who does the planting? The harvesting? Who is a hunter? Who chases birds from the fields? Finally, either concurrently or later, questions should be asked so that daily time budgets can be built for each gender at least. Here are some frequently noted examples:

Men: sleeping, eating meals and resting, socializing, caring for livestock, field work or special activities like hunting, administration/community projects, personal hygiene;

Women: sleeping, collecting wood & water, cooking, eating and resting, socializing, caring for children, laundry & cleaning, field work or other special activities like fishing, gathering plants, medicine preparations, personal hygiene.

Community Level: Needs Assessment and Resource Location

All of the preceding activities have focused the participants on their individual and communal roles and, as a natural consequence, they will then be better able to define their actual needs, rather than produce an ad hoc “wish list.” They have explained to outsiders how they are organized—spatially, socially, temporally, technically—and how they relate to one another and their physical environment. Now there is common ground to bring up the sometimes sensitive topics of actual needs and resources and to build both skills and consensus about how to prioritize those needs. To acquire data on community needs, the team will use focus group discussion techniques with subsets of community members serving as the focus group (men, women, mothers, teens, etc.)

Any number of relevant topics can be examined, depending on the project goal: (1) education; (2) health; (3) hygiene; (4) food security; (5) forest resources; (6) development needs, and so on. Each team member can conduct a session with a focus group to maximize the input and amount of data acquired. For each topic, a group can use free-recall listing to generate a list of responses on the topic: “What health problems do you have here?”

All answers should be recorded. This list can be as long and inclusive as necessary. After discussion, the moderator can ask a final open-ended question to generate a consensus listing of needs: “Which is the most important?” “Which is the biggest problem?” Such a question generally provokes diverse opinions and much discussion.

After a suitable period, the facilitator asks the participants to rank-order, or prioritize, the items on the list. For example, using a matrix on the ground or on paper, ask the participants to assign relative importance for each item, arriving at a rank-ordering for each item on the list. Another technique is to put a photo or drawing of each option on the outside of a jar and give each participant three beans or pebbles and ask them to put one in each of the top three jars. Or you can use folded paper of different colors and ask participants to put one color in the most important action, another color in the second most important, and so on. It can be an exciting event to discover which options have the winning support.

After the rankings have been compiled, your team can select the top ranked items, for example, the top 5 perhaps, and ask the participants to suggest how these needs/problems can best be met by: (1) identifying the intrinsic resources (what they can provide and contribute) and (2) the extrinsic resources (that which is not available to them). This exercise is called resource location. For example, if a community clinic was prioritized, what resources do they have for building materials and what labor will they donate to achieve this aim? If school supplies are prioritized, what local materials can be used (charcoal for writing?) and what must be supplied from outside (textbooks?). It is a very important to make clear, during the resource location exercise, that donor agencies are interested in seeing local initiative and progress towards maximum self-sufficiency and sustainability by building partnerships. While only the community can solve its own problems, outside sources can complement their efforts and donor agencies can become full partners in helping them achieve their development priorities.

Household Level: Personal and Family Needs Assessment by Gender

Income and power disparities exist in any community. Often, some members are reluctant to engage in community exercises. For this reason, the same techniques introduced above can be used on the household level to ensure an opportunity to express personal needs. [Gender issues are best handled at the individual level.] Having identified households in the community social map exercise, each individual member of your team will conduct as many household focus group discussions as possible for those wishing to participate.

The best time for this is in the evenings. The priorities matrix will be used in the same manner as above. If deemed necessary, your team members can sort households into 3 groups (e.g., for focus group discussions: (1) adult men; (2) adult women; and (3) teens. For obvious reasons, the needs of these groups are not only very different but roles and social status impinge on getting honest answers to some sensitive questions. The presence of men or parents can intimidate those of lower status and prevent them from expressing themselves freely. Personal data, such as household income if relevant, can be generated during this exercise.

Final Facilitation Session

This is the traditional setting for a communal meal and the provision of gifts, thanking the community for their hospitality and input. The aim of this final meeting is: (1) to summarize the activities of your team; (2) to ask for final comments, corrections or clarifications regarding the process; and (3) to prioritize their development needs as a community. For instance, if the assessment included a ranking of priorities by subject area (e.g., “health,” “hygiene”), these rankings from the various focus groups must now be synthesized and ranked by the entire community according to the order in which they should be implemented. This exercise should generate much discussion as the whole community comes together to negotiate their priorities. You may want to review the principles for negotiating that are included in Module Five: How to Conduct a Meeting in Intercultural Settings.

Once the new priorities are set for the entire community, your team will summarize the intrinsic and extrinsic resources as recorded earlier for each priority ranking from the focus group discussions and ask again for corrections or revisions. The goal of this final meeting is for your team and the community to reach a consensus concerning the priorities, resource location, and contributions required by each partner. Naturally, the final obligation is to clarify the next step in the process and give a definitive timeline. A final written report should be returned to the community in a reasonable period of time. You might consider a laminated poster or a form other than a long printed report if the village has a relatively low literacy rate.

Communication Strategies

Communication Strategy 1. Find a local contact person who is both a cultural broker and a qualified expert/interpreter. Have extensive discussions with your local contact person so that all parties are clearly communicating and establishing a relationship of trust before commencing any local participatory activities.

Tip. Seek out a local institution such as a college or university, identify the appropriate political authority and/or seek out local teachers, to help find the best local contact person.

Communication Strategy 2. Ask the local contact person to secure permission and make arrangements for the preliminary local community meeting. This person should make all necessary, prior arrangements such as approval of local, regional and national political entities, home-stays for each team member or other accommodations, special needs and issues. This approach usually entails a trip by an Advance Team to build relationships and facilitate detailed communication and consensus.

Tip. After all preparations and at the outset of the community visit—even if a day or so beforehand—be prepared to “play-act” to request permission officially in the presence of the community and to “re-negotiate” the agenda and “rules of engagement.” Allow the community to set the agenda and rules, with input from your team and local contact person.

Tip. Have a culturally-appropriate “ice-breaker” exercise prepared, to get people laughing and engaged.

Tip. Once the meeting begins, “let go” of the process, of your ‘expertise,’ your ‘authority’ as rich outside elitists, and actively “listen.” Ask for clarifications if confused, take notes, ask open-ended questions but never state your opinions or give answers. Ask for solutions, never suggest one; use sincerity to elicit information: “How might we best …?” The meeting belongs to the community.

Tip. “Be the Guide on the Side,” and not the “Sage on the Stage.” At this juncture, the process is not about you. Have fun, and make sure the community has fun. Don’t be afraid to make a “fool” of yourself. Break down cultural barriers and stereotypes. Jettison your own cultural norms and hang-ups and join in—do participant observation.

Communication Strategy 3. Use community-level activities to build consensus. Actively solicit how all can benefit. Use household-level activities to better understand the interpersonal dynamics or “individualistic” issues. These dynamics and issues will begin to appear in the community meeting—be attentive!

Tip. At the community-level stay focused on community issues; be a peacemaker, keep bringing the discussion back to community issues and perspectives. At the household or individual levels, solicit minority opinions. Try to understand the motivations and validity of those who dissent.

Communication Strategy 4. Map for success. If using mapping or any other community-wide technique, step out of the scene but do not step out of the process.

Tip. Use gestures and body language to demonstrate that you are actively engaged and interested. This is their story, their lives, that you have asked them to share with you. Listen with your entire body.

Tip. Mingle, interact, use expressions of good will or culturally appropriate humor to engage the “audience.” Strike up personal conversations, ask if you may hold a baby, bend down and talk to a youngster. (Don’t use US sports talk, such as baseball, if the local people play soccer.)

Communication Strategy 5. If you have a final facilitation session, be prepared to give small, practical gifts. You and your local contact person should have discussed what is appropriate and needed: University T-shirts, chalk, school notebooks, pencils, etc. Take somewhat more elaborate gifts for the local contact person or community leaders: inexpensive wrist watches, baseball caps, etc. These are not to be conveyed as bribes but as a gesture of thanks.

Tip. Get the children involved in passing the gifts out. Make sure there is something culturally-appropriate for all the children in the community, e.g., chewing gum, sweets, etc.

Tip. If appropriate and as discussed previously with the local contact person, have the youngsters give a short skit or presentation. Your team can practice and sing an appropriate song from their culture and ask the community to do likewise.

Communication Strategy 6.Complete your report promptly, having made prior arrangements on how it will be transmitted, or handed, back to the community. Make sure that a public presentation takes place of “returning” their report to the entire community. You have acted as a consultant, now deliver the promised “goods.” The report should be presented in a formal meeting so that all community members see the product of their work. You might consider a laminated poster or a form other than a long printed report if the village has a relatively low literacy level. The report may also be useful to future humanitarian groups. (Be sure to get explicit community approval before photographing or videotaping!)

STUDENTS’ COMMENTARIES

RESOURCES

For further investigation.

Further Study of Community-Based Participatory Rural Appraisals