Participatory Resource Appraisal (PRA)

 Participatory Resource Appraisal is a way of learning about natural resources from local community. A field-based methodology evolved in1990’s- involves local community participation in study on natural resources. Participatory Resource Appraisal (PA) enable local people to identify their own priorities and make their own decisions about the future. The organising agency facilitates, listens and learns. PRA uses visual and flexible tools to ensure that everyone can join in regardless of background. It can be carried out in a place familiar to local community. PRA can help utilise natural resources on a sustainable basis.

 

•        Participatory - People are involved

•        Resource – source of supply of something that is available for use

•        Appraisal-finding out of information about problems, needs etc-

 

PRA was developed in Africa and Asia and is now used across the globe. A multitude of acronyms are used to describe it: e.g. PLA (Participatory Learning and Action), and PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal).

 

PRA is an assessment and learning process for participatory planning and action. The approach aims to incorporate the knowledge and opinions of rural people in the planning and management of development projects and programmes. Participatory Appraisal is an empowerment approach that seeks to build community knowledge and encourage action at grass root level.

PRA is used when you are willing to let the community take control, when you want to base your actions on local knowledge and when you want to reach out to very diverse members of a community. The long-term goal of this approach is to empower and enable people to analyse and tackle their problems themselves.

 

 

Principles of Participatory Resource Appraisal

 

1) Listening and learning - through participation

2) Offsetting biases – which generally arise with “rushed proposals”

3) Proper utilization of community time – in the best possible way

4) Seeking diversity – learning from diverse conditions and people

5) Crosschecking – to minimize errors in the results obtained

 

PRA uses a lot of visual methods making it especially useful for participants. Various techniques are used including community/participatory mapping, diagramming (resource mapping, Venn diagrams etc.), focus group discussions, interviews, ecosystem mapping, etc. Oral and visual communication using diagrams, pictures etc. are prioritized to overcome literacy divides.

 

Techniques used include:

•        Ø Surveying and sampling, e.g. transect walks (systematic walk along a defined path (transect) across the community/project area together with the local people to explore the water and sanitation conditions by observing, asking, listening, looking), wealth ranking (information on the relative wealth and well-being of households in a village -helps in determining the social and economic status of households in a village), social mapping.

•        Ø Interviewing, e.g. group discussions, semi-structured interviews

•        Ø Community mapping, e.g. Venn diagrams, matrix scoring, ecograms, timelines.

 

 

The critical aspects of PRA are

1) Proper attitude and behaviour- for approaching and establishing links with local communities

2) Process of participation- process of rapport building, process of learning, pace of participatory process, broadening and deepening participatory process

3) Methods for interactive participation-interview, walks, etc

4) Sharing-information obtained from local communities should be shared for further learning to occur

 

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is thus an assessment and learning approach that focusses on empowering local people to actively involve in analysing their living conditions, problems, and potentials and bring about changes required. Changes are to be achieved by collective action and the local communities are encouraged to assume responsibilities for implementing appropriate actions. PRA follows the principles of decentralization and empowerment and ensures accountability to stakeholders. PRA is an exercise which transfers the role of planning and decision-making, traditionally taken by government institutions and development agencies, to the target group or community itself.

 

• PRA can be expensive at first as it is very important that people running the process are properly trained in the approaches and its values. If local community members learn the approaches themselves and become more confident, the costs of hiring external help may be reduced.
• PRA should be an ongoing process to ensure you are getting the most out of it.

• PRA can be extremely inclusive, flexible, and empowering. The knowledge produced by local community researchers will be highly reliable, and can help to identify and tackle underlying issues.
• When local community members have been trained to facilitate a process, this capacity remains within the community for the future.
• PRA is a creative and flexible approach that can complement and draw in other techniques as and when needed throughout the process.

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PRA Techniques

 • Transect Walk

• Timeline

• Social Mapping

• Seasonal mapping

• Venn diagram

• Matrix ranking

• Pair wise ranking

• Well being ranking

 Transect Walk

• It is mostly used for the appraisal of natural resources in terms of status, problems and potential. It provides a cross-sectional representation of the different agro-ecological zones.

• This has also been used for the depiction of various social aspects, such as, the caste and ethnic determinants of a settlement.

 Types of transect Paths

• Walk from a high point across to a low point in the area

• Just a straight line walk from one extreme point of the area to the other.

• To get more detailed view of the area, an S-shaped transect walk is also undertaken

 Key steps

• Locate a group of local people having some knowledge of the area and who are willing to walk with you for the exercise. Explain the purpose of the study.

• Go along with the people at the prefixed time on the already decided transect path.

• Observe the surroundings. If necessary, stop at certain locations for detailed discussions on the points emerging. It also gives you a breather and time to note down details.

• After returning, draw a transect on a large sheet of paper. Let the local people take the lead in drawing the transect diagram. Use your notes and the notes of other members of the transect team while making the diagram

• It is not uncommon to have two transects done for the same area- one by local men and another by local women. What is very striking s the different perspectives the two transect produce.

• The path, as far as possible, should remain the same for different transect walks. It helps in making the date more comparable. If you want the coverage to be detailed, you can select more than one path and have the same and different team do the transect walk.

 

Timeline

• It captures the chronology of events as recalled by local people

• Time line provides an aggregate of the various landmark events as perceived by the local people.

• Helps to learn from the community what they consider to be important past events, the historical perspective on current issues and to generate discussions on changes with respect to issues you are interested in.

 Key steps

• Identify some elderly persons in the village, explain the purpose of the exercise.

• The key questions:

• When was the village established? What are the important events in the history of the village? What major changes took place? What are the reasons for these changes?

• Make a note of the key points in brief in cards in bold letters.

• Once you feel that the list is more or less complete, keep the cards in a chronological order- the earlier events on the top and the later events lower down.

•  Add years to the left side of the list of events.

• Triangulate with other elderly persons in the village to see the correctness of the information given in the time line. Secondary sources of information can also be used.

 

Venn Diagram

Venn diagram is useful to study and understand local people’s perceptions about local institutions, individuals, programmes etc. Particularly useful to study and analyse:

 • Various institutions and individuals and their influences on the local people

• Various groups and individuals in the locality and their influence.

• Relative importance and usefulness of services and programmes

 

Eg., 1) Ask the participants to list the various institutions , which are assigned in different sizes of the circles. Size of the circle is proportionate to perceived importance- i.e., big circle more important

2) Distance from the centre is proportionate to access, i.e., less distance means easier access

Well being ranking

• Used for ranking and grouping households and communities on the basis of income/livelihood, wealth and other perceivable well being criteria such as educational attainment, food security etc.

• It is based on the perception of the local people. It helps to understand the local people’s conceptions of wealth, well-being and their views on socio-economic disparities between households.

• Helpful to explore issues like: livelihood, vulnerability, constraints to development as people perceive them, and to design intervention strategies in line with people’s aspirations.

 • To study inter-household and inter-group socio-economic disparities and to understand how the local people view them.

• Well being ranking is generally done with key informants. The selection is made based on the basis of their knowledge about the different households.

 

Make a list of households. The names of the head of households are written on separate cards. A group of key informants with good knowledge of the village are then asked to rank the household. Let the participants do the ranking on their own. Ask the participants to sort out the household cards into representatives categories of well- being. Ensure that the participants discuss among themselves and arrive at the well-being categories.

 As the participants arrange the household cards, ask them why they have placed the cards in a particular order. This gives you the criteria participants are using to do the well being ranking.