Resources

This Reality Check was undertaken by a team of Nepali researchers, and carried out as a contribution to the mixed methods approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning commissioned by DFID Nepal to complement and assist the routine monitoring and evaluation of the Rural Access Programme 3 in Mid and Far West Nepal. It complements a ‘baseline’ RCA that was undertaken for RAP in May 2014.

People living in mountain ecosystems in the developing world are particularly vulnerable to climate change as a result of their high dependence on natural resources for their livelihoods, comparatively higher exposure to extreme events, and widespread poverty and marginalisation. However, little is known about the impacts of climate change on these communities, people’s perceptions of change, or their capacity to adapt. In order to identify the key determinants for future adaptation, we need to have a much better understanding of these issues. This publication provides an analytical framework and methodology for assessing environmental and socioeconomic changes affecting the livelihoods of rural, natural resource dependent communities living in mountainous environments. It also gives guidance on how to gain a better understanding of the forces which shape mountain communities’ vulnerabilities, and the capacities inherent to these communities for coping and adapting. The framework is intended primarily for development practitioners and institutions working on climate change vulnerability and adaptation in mountainous environments.

Accountability is a complex issue in South Africa. The country has high levels of inequality, and marginalised groups – as in many countries – struggle to make themselves heard by those in power. Yet the issue is further complicated by an interacting set of factors, including the legacy of apartheid, gender and religious issues, and the lack of access to those in power.
 

Through a six-year research project, the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF) used a range of technology-enabled participatory processes to unpack this lack of government accountability. This report focuses on four case studies, which examined the lived realities of marginalised groups and the activists that campaign on their behalf: activists against gender-based violence and for community safety; community care workers and health committee members working for public health; informal traders and the informal economy; and traditional medicine, Rastafarian bossie doktors and indigenous rights.
 

Using a multi-method research process, SLF supported these groups to work together and identify the accountability issues that they felt were important, and then consider how they could raise their voice collectively to those in power and those who shape and implement policy. As well as providing valuable findings, which SLF fed into the policy dialogue, this process also strengthened the capacity of these groups to speak out – not least through the use of different participatory technologies including digital storytelling, filmmaking, PhotoVoice, geospatial mapping and infographics.
 

This report reflects on the different tools used, considering not just the effectiveness of the outputs generated but also how these tools can empower citizens and bring marginalised groups together. Lastly, the report reflects on SLF’s role as an intermediary organisation, and how this role can influence the path that marginalised groups take in their efforts to make government more responsive to their needs.

This report is based on a participatory research that involved the following stages: community participants facilitated scripting a participatory video and producing a film; collecting and collating case stories of CityMakers facing different problems and their views on the issues; using participatory tools, facilitating discussion with community participants to cull out different arguments that the analysis needs to contain; and presenting a draft report to community participants for their concluding remarks.  Also appended to this report is a participatory video, which was created by members of the urban poor community themselves.

This third issue of Voice for Change is focused on issues that thousands of sewerage workers in India face on a daily basis. They enter sewers to clean them manually with minimal safety equipment.  They face instability because of the contractual nature of the work along with poor pay and benefits as well as general apathy from the State.  Their voices amplify various issues ranging from discriminations of caste to the undignified manner in which they are treated, from the hazardous nature of their work to indifference to their plight, and culminate in a a series of demands.

This Participate report draws on the experiences and views of people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation in 107 countries. It distils messages from 84 participatory research studies published in the last seven years.

A development framework post-2015 will have legitimacy if it responds to the needs of all citizens, in particular those who are most marginalised and face ongoing exclusion from development processes. The framework has to incorporate shared global challenges and have national level ownership if it is to support meaningful change in the lives of people living in poverty.