Resources

In 1993, a collaboration was forged between the Center for Medical Guidance and Family Planning (CEMOPLAF) and World Neighbors-Ecuador (WN) to encourage the participation of indigenous populations to utilise reproductive health services provided by CEMOPLAF. The partnership was implemented through the sensitive integration of these services with agriculture and animal husbandry, which resulted in a dramatic uptake by local people. This newsletter follows a learning exchange which took place from November 18 - 26, 2000, between interdisciplinary teams from WN programs in Bolivia, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru and key members of the CEMOPLAF-World Neighbors program in Ecuador. The exchange allowed the participants to explore and analyse the different aspects of the program, draw on their own experiences in relation to implementing reproductive health programs, and understand more fully an integrated approach to implementing reproductive health programs.

Spanish language conference paper on use of PRA for evaluating different aspects of pressure on and conflict about communal national park resources.

Conference paper on use of PRA in conflict resolution in National Parks in Venzuela.

This article argues that if participation is consistently emphasised in all phases of a project, local people will increasingly become the owners of the changes that they propose. It draws from experiences in a water management project in Haurancca, Peru. It describes the various phases of the project, including a participatory appraisal and planning phase, a process of interactive design, a construction phase and the stage of clarifying water management to enable effective use of the physical infrastructure. The lessons learnt from the experience are also reflected upon.

Compas (Comparing and Supporting Endogenous Development) is an international programme whose aim is to understand and encourage the diversity of rural people's knowledge and expand inter-cultural dialogues on farmer's knowledge and indigenous learning. The March 2001 issue of Compas Magazine focuses on indigenous traditional knowledge and the challenges these traditions face in the modern world. It includes articles on perceptions of traditions, positive and negative aspects of tradition, Mayan concepts of health, participatory rapid assessment of local Indian health traditions, and eco-cultural villages in Zimbabwe. (full text of this is available on their website)

This article describes the exploratory and preparatory phase of a research project designed to use co-operative enquiry as a method for transformative and participatory action research into relations between donors and recipients in two developing countries, Bolivia and Bangladesh. It describes the origins of the idea, the conceptual challenges that the authors faced in seeking funding, and what they learned from this first phase. The authors analyse why the researchers, as well as the potential subjects of the research, were uncomfortable with the proposed methodology, including the challenges arising from their own positions and the highly sensitive nature of the topic. They explain why they decided to abandon the project, and they reach some tentative conclusions concerning the options for participatory action learning and research in development practice.