Resources

The Reality Check Approach is an internationally recognised qualitative research approach that requires the study team to live with people in poverty in their own homes for a period of time and to use this opportunity to have many informal conversations and interactions with all the members of the household, their neighbours and with the service providers with whom they interact.

This study was jointly commissioned by a group of stakeholders including the World Bank, KOMPAK and the Knowledge Sector Initiative. It was designed to understand the nuances of hygiene and nutrition behaviour from the perspective of families living in poverty.

The study was undertaken in three provinces across Indonesia (Central Kalimantan, Maluku, and North Sulawesi), the same districts as those chosen for the Frontline Service Providers RCA study to enable further examination and triangulation of the dynamics between the community and frontline service providers.

This article describes the use Forum and Invisible Theatre to educate members of the public, living near to Campsfield detention centre in Oxford, about forced migration and claiming asylum, in the hopes that it would lead to action by the audience.

This research report is borne out of CDRN and CAREÆs attempts to strengthen their support to civil society organisations in Uganda. The report takes the widely held belief that the needs and interests of poorer people are directly or indirectly represented through community-based organisations, and that working with CBOs is therefore a route to poverty reduction as its starting point. As more and more initiatives, both government and NGO-led, attempt to use this channel to reach the poor, the research examines the validity of this assumption. The report concludes by suggesting that the assumption: æfind the groups and you have found the poorÆ is only partially correct. It might be more accurate to assume that æin some kinds of groups, you will find some kinds of poor people.Æ
The report is structured into six main sections: introduction; an overview of the research sites, groups and external perspectives on group formation; the strengths and weaknesses of groups in representing the poor; exploring the relationship between a group and external groups/ institutions; an exploration of where the poorer members of a community are if they are not in groups; and conclusions and recommendations.

Two key aspects are identified to the success of a programme: (i) change in bureaucratic attitudes and (ii) organisation of beneficiaries for self-help. Bureaucrats focus on targets, especially financial targets, refuse to see problems through the people's eyes, refuse to listen, and are unconcerned with the needs of the poor. Hence, a need for reversing bureaucratic attitudes. One way is to put officials in an environment in which they become sensitised through learning from farmers/villagers (e.g. through overnight stays in villages). It is important that department heads provide support and role models for such activities. Resistance by officials is possible. The application of PRA/RRA methods to reversal exercises are described, and learning steps listed. If facilitating is to be successful, officials have to be committed to the process and open to villagers' ideas. Organisations in India for which the process would be suited are suggested. The author's personal experience is that the process changed his personal as well as professional approach to interaction with others.