Children's participation in community-based disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change
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As part of the 50th issue of PLA Notes, this article provides an introductory overview of both critical reflections as well as future directions of participatory learning and action. The articles compiled in the 50th edition speak from personal analyses and experiences. This article describes the process and products of a writeshop, held at IDS, where the participants came up with a timeline of participatory development based on their experiences. The main themes identified then formed the basis for the articles in this special issue of PLA Notes, including literacy, adult education and empowerment; participatory communications; sexual and reproductive health and well-being; gender and development; children's participation; agriculture, livestock and fisheries; people-centred approaches for natural resource management; urban participatory development; participation and well-being; monitoring and evaluation; advocacy, citizenship and rights; participatory processes in the North; governance and democracy; and critical reflections from practice. Several crosscutting themes also emerged, such as the evolution or participatory discourse; sharing learning and best practice between the South and the North; recognizing the political significance of participation, democratization and issues of power; scaling-up and institutionalizing participatory approaches; the continuing importance of critical reflection and participatory monitoring and evaluation; and the links between working at the local, national and international levels. After identifying these themes, the article goes on to briefly introduce and summarise each of the articles in this special issue. The article concludes with a hope that readers of PLA Notes continue to send in critical reflections and examples of innovations and best practices.
This is the second volume of the series 'Learning to Shareà' in which development practitioners continue to share lessons learnt from the field in the area of community participation. The experiences described in this book are all based in India and cover such topics as participatory eco-restoration, women's food calendar, participatory livestock development, participatory forestry, participatory village profile, bio-diversity monitoring, participatory need assessment, children's perceptions of livelihood and participatory impact assessment. See also, Volume I, shelf location 3171
This booklet is concerned with waste pickers in Dhaka and explores their livelihoods using the DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA). It is based on a period of fieldwork and presents much of the livelihood information gathered as well as discussing the effectiveness of the SLA in this urban context. The booklet is divided into two main sections: À Key Findings: presents the livelihood-related findings for waste pickers and draws a number of conclusions about the nature, vulnerability and sustainability of their livelihoods. The performance of the SLA tool is also discussed in this section. À Field Notes: describes the fieldwork methodology and highlights some of the lessons learned and pitfalls encountered during research. This section describes a number of the participatory techniques employed, and raises general issues about research with illiterate, underprivileged children.
This anthology provides insights, dilemmas and approaches from the practice of development assistance, based on the experiences of USAID. The practical meanings of participation are explored in contexts ranging from economic reform and environmental planning to conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance. The book is split into three broad sections: À Participation as an End - considers ways in which development assistance can broaden peoples access to economic opportunity and to their society's decision making processes À Participation as a Means - describes some participatory approaches used in development programmes. They single out two key features: listening more broadly and forming genuine partnerships À In part three the focus is on issues and insights about "fixing the system" to facilitate the fuller engagement of development partners and greater flexibility, transparency, and responsiveness to the end user. The papers selected reflect some of the innovations, issues and candidly expressed concerns that have marked the agencies reforms. Finally a conference paper prepared by USAID staff in late 1998 outlines the Agency's organisational change process so far and distills seven lessons learned enroute.
The search for valid and reliable indicators of household food and nutrition security has recently brought about innovations in participatory and qualitative indicators. This paper describes two of these. One is an indicator of household food security that relies on the frequency and severity of consumption-related coping strategies and on perceptions of sufficiency. The other is a participatory analysis of the determinants of malnutrition in children, using a concept mapping technique. Both approaches are described and discussed, particularly with localised applications. The article concludes by discussing the advantages of these indicators, and some of the problems and challenges associated with them.
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.
This is a newsletter which describes the formation of the Midnet PRA group and includes a number of very short articles and thoughts on practitioners experiences with PRA in Southern Africa. Experiences shared include working with young people, in education, with periurban communities, for catchment management and for land reform. The methods used are discussed with details of venn diagrammes for community organisation, historical time lines. There are reports from trainings in Namaqualand and Namibia. The thoughts that emerged from evaluation/ reflection and planning meetings included the ideas of rapid learning and sharing and the need for more training. The final article summarises the PRA and gender workshop held at IIED in December 1993.
This paper begins by tracing the development of RRA and later PRA. PRA is defined and its origins discussed. Eight steps involved in undertaking a PRA are outlined. Some assumptions or principles of PRA are outlined and its advantages are discussed. The next section discusses applications of PRA in Kenya. These have included water and soil conservation, child health, water and sanitation, natural resource conservation, irrigation and monitoring and evaluation. The paper then discusses problems and constraints of PRA, and challenges facing PRA. Training and institutionalisation are explored and the conclusion examines the role of the African Centre for Technology in PRA.
This paper describes how The Mazingira Institute in Nairobi created and used a series of illustrated learning packages on environmental issues to stimulate responses from school children. Annual competitions invited children to answer questions and submit essays and drawings on a variety of topics. The children's responses proved a valuable source of information on their perceptions of environmental issues, and traditional knowledge and action in their communities. The "information exchange with children" project helped children to link what they learned in school with what they heard from the elders in their community, and with what they could see and do themselves. The authors conclude that the distributed learning packages and responses gathered from children combine mass media with the education system, allowing the youth to address environment and development problems, and potentially linking with policy making.