Participatory Rural Appraisal

1. Participatory Rural Appraisal

2. Overview of presentation • Introduction and Definition of PRA • Origin of PRA • Principles shared by PRA and RRA • Exclusive principles of PRA • What it is? • Definition • Principle Components • Precepts of PRA • Evolution in Details • What’s in it? • Where it is Applied? • Practical Example • Criticism • Bibliography

3. PRA: Introduction and Definition • PRA : Participatory Rural Appraisal • Components: • People • Knowledge • Participation • Planning • Action • It is a combination of different approaches to • Share • Enhance • Analyze • Plan • Act For the betterment of the rural people with their participation • The secrets behind the success of PRA are • Decentralization • Empowerment

4. PRA: Origin • PRA has been evolved from RRA (Rapid Rural Appraisal) • In mid 80’s the necessity of participation in rural development became evident and the term PRA was born • The understanding of PRA came mostly from field rather than academia • PRA mostly focuses on the empowerment of people through participation • The sustainability rate of PRA is high due to the participation of the local people • The sense of ownership and belongingness helps to the success of PRA

5. Principles shared by PRA & RRA • Reversal of learning • To learn of the local people • Learning rapidly and progressively • Exploration, flexible methods, adaptable • Offsetting bias • To be receptive rather than preconceived ideas • Optimizing tradeoffs • Understanding the usefulness of information • Triangulating • Crosschecking and approximation

6. Exclusive Principles of PRA • Empowerment • The authority to local people through decentralization and confidence building • Self critical awareness • Mistakes are lessons to learn and to do better next time • Personal responsibility • The belongingness and ownership to the participants • Sharing • To discuss and argue about ideas in open forum with all stakeholders

7. What it is? • Participatory research is not an alternative research method, but an approach that can be applied to any methodology – survey, experimental, qualitative (Lilja and Bellon 2008). • “PRA methods, as they are often called, are visual and tangible and usually performed by small groups of people”. (Chambers 2007) • PRA comprised of different research tools to facilitate local people in • Analyzing information • Practicing critical self-awareness • Taking responsibility • Sharing their knowledge of life and conditions to plan and to act.

8. Definition • As it has diverse application and has been changing rapidly any effort to define it might be folly and ‘unhelpful’. • “ An approach and methods for learning about rural life and conditions from, with and by rural people”. (Chambers 1994)

9. Principle Components of PRA Source: Chambers 2007.

10. Adopted from Chambers 2007

11. Evolution • Originally evolved from Rapid Rural Appraisal and spread fast in the 1990s. • Shift in rhetoric: “from top-down to bottom up, from centralized to local diversity, from blue prints to learning process”. (Chambers 1994) • Learning is two way system and respondents know better his/her daily encounter. • Emphasis on the power relation between the researcher and ‘researched’. • Practicing participatory research started since 1983 in Bangladesh.

12. Evolution • Five streams which stand out as sources and parallels to PRA are, in alphabetical order: • Activist participatory research; • Agro-ecosystem analysis; • Applied anthropology; • Field research on farming systems; • Rapid rural appraisal. (Chambers 1994)

13. Activist Participatory Research • The contributions of APR to PRA are more through concepts than methods: • Common ideas: • Poor people are creative and capable; • Can and should do their own investigation, analysis and planning; • Outsiders have roles as a convenors, catalysts and facilitators. • The weak and marginalized can and should be improved.

14. Agro-ecosystem Analysis • Gordon Conway developed this approach in Thailand at the University of Chiang Mai around the year 1978. • It contributed much in current RRA and PRA through: • Transects (Systematic walks and observation); • Informal mapping (Sketch maps drawn on site); • Diagramming (Seasonal Calendars, flow and causal diagrams, bar charts, van or chapatidiagrams ) • Innovation assessment (scoring and ranking different actions)

15. Applied Anthropology • “PRA represents an extension and application of social anthropological approaches, insights, and methods, cross-fertilized with others.” • Insights and contributions from Applied Anthropology: • Field learning is flexible art rather than rigid science; • The value of field residence, unhurried participant observation, and conversations; • The importance of attitude, behavior and rapport; • The emic-etic distinction; • The validity and importance of ITK.

16. Field Research on Farming System • Have contributed to the appreciation and understanding of • Complexity, diversity and risk-proneness of many farming system; • The knowledge, professionalism and rationality of small and poor farmers; • Their experimental mindset and behavior; • Their ability to conduct their own analysis.

17. Rapid Rural Appraisal • Has three main origins: • Disappointment: anti-poverty bias, rural development tourism. • Disillusion with questionnaire surveys and their confusing results; • Cost-effective.

18. From RRA to PRA

19. What’s in it? • Secondary sources • Semi-structured interviews • Key informants • Groups of various kinds • Do-it-yourself • They do it • Participatory analysis of secondary sources- aerial photographs • Participatory mapping and modeling • Transect walks • Time line and trend and change analysis • Oral histories and ethno-biographies • Seasonal Calendars • Daily time use analysis • Livelihood analysis • Participatory linkage diagramming • Institutional or Venn Diagramming • Well being and wealth grouping and ranking • Analysis of difference • Matrix scoring and ranking • Estimates and quantification • Stories, portraits and case studies • Team contracts and Interactions • Presentation and analysis • Participatory planning, budgeting, monitoring • Group discussions

20. Where it is applied? • PRA applications include: • Natural Resource Management; • Agriculture; • Poverty and Social Programs; • Health and • Food Security Analysis. • Project Cycle • From inception to end. • Participatory projects pull methods, attitudes and values from PRA. • ‘Micro projects’

21. Practical Example • VGDUP- Vulnerable Group Development for Ultra-poor • What are the indicators? • Owning less than 10 decimals of land(0.04 ha) • No ownership of production assets • There are no active adult male house hold members • Employment, if any is limited to day-laboring or domestic help • The household is de facto headed by a women (divorced, abandoned, widow, unmarried) • PRA in this project • Wealth ranking among the candidates

22. Whose Participation?: The criticism • “... much of what currently passes as 'participatory' involves local people taking part in other people's projects, according to agendas set by external interests.” (Cornwall 1996) • Remained donor driven and ‘imposed’. • Lack of proper training distorts the overall objectives of this approach. • Methods are often used to extract info’s rather than to empower. • Even the term ‘carpet-bombed with PRA’ came forward due to its over utilization. • Shortcomings of some methods like community meetings and widespread use of group discussion.

23. Bibliography • Lilja , Nina and Mauricio Bellon ; Some common questions about participatory research: a review of the literature, Development in Practice, Volume 18, Numbers 4–5, August 2008. • Chambers, Robert; The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal. World Development, Volume 22, No 7, pp 953-969, 1994. • Chambers, Robert; From PRA to PLA and Pluralism: Practice and Theory, Working Paper 286, IDS, 2007. • Cornwall, Andrea; Towards participatory practice: participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and the participatory process inDe Koning, Korrie and Martin Marion (1996). Participatory Research in Health: Issues and Experiences. Zen Books Ltd., London.