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This document includes, details of the process used to review ActionAids programme in Somaliland and provides both a summary and details of the findings. The review was carried out by a group of both men and women composed of community based organisation members, village elders, staff from government institutions and other professionals. Mapping, interviews and small group discussions were used to elicit data on availability, relevance, accessibility, utilisation, coverage, quality, effort, efficiency and impact indicators.

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.

: Les effets de l'ouragan Mitch en 1998 et la pluie suivante qui est tombÚe en cinq jours de la valeur de 10 annÚes; a apportÚ la dÚvastation environnementale et agricole en AmÚrique Centrale. Les Voisins Mondiaux avaient travaillÚ pendant beaucoup d'annÚes sur la promotion de la conservation du sol et de lÆeau, et l'ouragan prÚsentait un moyen d'Útudier l'efficacitÚ de ce travail en combattant les effets dÚsastreux d'un climat potentiellement destructif ; ce bulletin donne les dÚtails de leur travail. Ils ont dÚcidÚ d'effectuer la Recherche Action Participative (RAP), un niveau d'Útude qui non seulement permet la participation de celles le plus considÚrablement affectÚs par le climat - les personnes locales - mais dÆautres participants qui ont augmentÚ leur propre connaissance par les mÚthodes et les rÚsultats de recherches. Le systÞme utilisÚ Útait un appareillement des parcelles de terrain avec les caractÚristiques semblables telles que l'endroit et la vÚgÚtation, mais qui ont fourni un partage des donnÚes par une comparaison directe de lÆagriculture Úcologique et celui conventionnelle. Des autres organismes ont ÚtÚ invitÚs pour participer Ó l'Útude et pour former des Úquipes avec les fermiers, et tous les participants ont participÚs Ó un atelier pour apprendre des mÚthodologies. Les mÚthodes utilisÚes pour analyser les diffÚrentes variables telles que la pente, lÆÚpaisseur du sol supÚrieure, la texture, la matiÞre organique, les insecte et les animaux, la vÚgÚtation, l'Úrosion, les Úboulements du terre, et les pratiques de la conservation sont dÚtaillÚs avec les rÚsultats et les leþons appris.

This issue of Natural Resource Perspectives from ODI (Overseas Development Institute) considers the role of æconflict management assessment in community-based natural resource projects. The importance of conducting an assessment of the potential for conflict and its management in relation to a project intervention is stressed, and an assessment framework described. Within this framework the advantages of managing conflict through a consensual æwin-winÆ process of stakeholder negotiation are discussed. The following policy conclusions are made. Interventions to assist in the management of conflict within community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) should be preceded by a æconflict management assessment (CMA). This assessment should consider: (a) whether the conflict is likely to overwhelm the existing customary, institutional and legal approaches to conflict management, and if so whether it is appropriate to try to strengthen these; (b) whether, if the conflict is left alone, new conflict management mechanisms will organically materialise within an acceptable time-frame; and (c) whether the long-term benefits of allowing the conflict to transform itself into a positive force for social reform are outweighed by the short-term costs. Interventions for improved conflict management should be guided by an overall strategy which considers the full range of management options. Capacity building is a critical component of effective conflict management and a process of stakeholder negotiations is where the most creative and durable solutions will be found. Two factors support consensual æwin-winÆ negotiations as an effective strategy for managing conflicts in CBNRM: (a) the multi-stakeholder nature of such conflicts; and (b) the common ground that exists for sustaining renewable natural resources. Implementation of an overall strategy of conflict management will need to be periodically monitored to ensure that new external forces are neutral to the conflict, and that either a ædo-nothingÆ strategy is having the expected impact, or that the commitments embodied in a negotiated agreement are implemented in full and are effective.

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".