Resources
Results
35 items
Sort by
An End To Isolation: The Report of the Ogaden Needs Assessment Study 1991
Abstract
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.
Publisher
SCF
Authority, Gender and Knowledge: Theoretical Reflections on Participatory Rural Appraisal
Abstract
This article explores constraints encountered when using PRA on an ODA-funded natural resources project in a tribal area of Western India. It was particularly evident that women's participation in the PRAs was minimal. The reasons for this were practical (women were not available collectively for long periods of time & there were few women fieldworkers as the project had just begun), social (PRA activities tended to take place in public places where women felt awkward) and methodological (women respond to PRA activities in different ways, sometimes feeling bored and "communicating by singing instead"). The author argues that an organised PRA "gives privilege to certain kinds of knowledge and representation and suppresses others" : the emphasis given to formal knowledge and activities tends to "reinforce the invisibility of women's roles". However, once the formal and public nature of PRA is perceived as a problem, it can become a means by which "women's knowledge and activities.. can be transferred from the informal to the formal arena of project planning", thereby increasing women's profile. Suggestions for encouraging women's participation in PRA include: making non-public contexts (since women are more used to the "private sphere"), using women's knowledge and ways of communicating (songs, sayings, proverbs). There are constraints: the "production of observable outputs (maps, diagrams of PRA) have more status for fieldworkers" than scribbled songs or informal interview notes and women's expressed needs (eg a flour mill) "don't fit easily into established categories of natural resource development".
Children's participation in community-based disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change
Download available
Publisher
International Institute for Environment and Development
Communication and natural resource management
Download available
Abstract
This book presents the role of communication in 8 case studies of natural resource management situations in developing countries. The case studies included are: Community based natural resource management in Namibia; Pastoralist communication in Kenya; Indigenous forest management in Cambodia; Recovering from conflict in Vietnam; Internet radio in Sri Lanka; Regional networking in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; Creating local organic markets in Turkey; Environmental education and Communication in El Salvador. It is designed as a learning tool and each case-study has specific learning objectives for the reader focussed around different aspects of communication in natural resource management. Questions are posed as every case-study develops serving as a base of discussion and inviting the reader to reflective thinking and drawing their own conclusions.
Publisher
FAO
Community Participation in Isiolo District: past initiatives and options for the future
Abstract
This paper, prepared as part of a report to the ODA, examines the past, present and future role of community participation in the development of Isiolo District, Kenya. Past initiatives discussed include government policy and practice, the institutional framework provided by the District Focus, and the role of the Department of Social Services. Current initiatives include the role of NGOs and international agencies, and community participation in the Isiolo Livestock Development Project. regarding the latter, there are discussions of the ILDP approach and its weaknesses, the role of the deda, ethnic conflict, women's participation and links with formal institutions. The final section discusses options for the future, including potential for the use of existing institutions, and channels for institutionalising and methods for facilitating community participation
Community-based adaptation to climate change: an overview
Download available
Publisher
International Institute for Environment and Development
Crying out for change
Download available
Abstract
'Voices of the Poor' is a series of three books that collates the experiences, views and aspirations of over 60,000 poor women and men. This second book of the series draws material from a 23-country comparative study, which used open-ended participatory methods, bringing together the voices and realities of 20,000 poor women, men, youth and children. Despite very different political, social and economic contexts, there are striking similarities in poor people's experiences. The common underlying theme is one of powerlessness, which consists of multiple and interlocking dimensions of illbeing or poverty. The book starts by describing the origins of the study, the methodology and some of the challenges faced. This is followed by an exploration of the multidimensional nature of wellbeing and illbeing. Most of the book comprises the core findings - the 10 dimensions of powerlessness and illbeing that emerge from the study - and is organised around these themes. These include livelihoods and assets; the places where poor people live and work; the body and related to this, accessing health services; gender roles and gender relations within the household; social exclusion; insecurity and related fears and anxieties; the behaviour and character of institutions; and poor people's ratings of the most important institutions in their lives. These dimensions are brought together into a many-stranded web of powerlessness, which is compounded by the lack of capability, including lack of information, education, skills and confidence. The final chapter is a call to action and dwells on the challenge of change.
Publisher
OUP for the World Bank
Improving Food Security: A Guide for Rural Development Managers
Publisher
Intermediate Technology Publications
Indigenous peoples, national parks and participation: a case study of conflicts in Canaima National Park, Venezuela
Download available
Abstract
This paper provides a resume of a D.Phil. research project. The overall aim of the project is to study and analyse the nature of conflicts in Canaima National Park, with emphasis on their history, structural causes and power relations. It seeks to find out which forms of participation are more likely to contribute to managing conflicts in national parks established in indigenous peopleÆs territories. The paper gives a brief background and rationale to the research project; presents the main points of argument and objectives; describes the project site and existing conflicts; and explains the research methodology which combines a community case study approach with traditional qualitative research methods. The paper discusses the spread of natural resource conflict management in Latin America; present trends and gaps in analysing conflicts in national parks; and the need to go beyond perception and stakeholder analysis in order to understand conflicts. The preliminary results of the study are presented regarding the nature of conflicts over implementation of park policy with focus on the use of fire by the Pemon people; tourism development; and the building of a power line to Brazil. The role of power in shaping different forms of participation is analysed focussing on the meaning of participation for the different factors. Based on the preliminary results, the paper proposes forms of participation that are likely to contribute to conflict management in Canaima National Park, focussing on the main conflicts (as mentioned above). An attachment gives further details of the field work process.
Investigating systems of fisheries access along the River Benue in Nigeria.
Download available
Abstract
This article outlines how a participatory approach was used in five villages to investigate systems of access to fishing rights and their evolution as a basis for future fisheries development initiatives. Particular attention was paid to conflicts and disputes which had emerged over such rights and conflict resolution process charts were constructed by village elders to show how disputes had been resolved in the past.
Learning to confront disasters like Hurrican Mitch: a research methodology guide
Abstract
The effects of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and the subsequent 10 years' worth of rain which fell in five days brought environmental and agricultural devastation to Central America. World Neighbors (WN) had worked for many years on the promotion of soil and water conservation; the hurricane provided an opportunity for WN to study the effectiveness of this work in combating the disastrous effects of a potentially destructive climate and this newsletter gives details their work. They decided to carry out Participatory Action Research (PAR), a level of study which not only allowed the involvement of those most greatly affected by the climate - the local people - but other participants who expanded their own knowledge through the research methods and results. The system used was a pairing of plots with similar characteristics such as location and vegetation, but which provided a sharing of data through a direct comparison of agro-ecological and conventional cultivation. Other organizations were invited to participate in the study and form teams with the farmers, and all participants attended a workshop to learn methodologies. The methods used to analyse different variables such as slope, top soil thickness, texture, organic matter, insect and animal life, vegetation, erosion, landslides, and conservation practices are detailed along with the findings and lessons learned.
Publisher
World Neighbors
Learning to share : experiences and reflections on PRA and community participation. Vol.1
Abstract
This book includes a wide ranging collection of papers which have been divided into sections dealing with communicating with children, gender empowerment, community interactive processes, approaches and insights, ethics and values of community participation and organizational capacity building.
Publisher
Concept
Livestock rehabilitation programme in Mozambique
Download available
Abstract
Thousands of farmers who sought refuge in urban centres during the ten-year civil war in Mozambique are now returning to their farms. In response to this changing situation, VetAid, a UK-based NGO, is planning a community restocking programme. PRA methods were used to gather information on the socio-economic, ecological and political conditions in the villages. This information was then used help design a restocking programme appropriate to the needs of the community. The article describes some of the methods which were used, which included wealth ranking, informal interviews, matrix ranking, diagrams and historical transects.