Participatory rural appraisal

1. Khalid Saifullah
Participatory Rural Appraisal

2. Defining PRA
 Participatory Rural Appraisal is a family of
approaches and methods to enable local people
to share, enhance, and analyse their knowledge
of life and conditions, to plan, and to act. -Robert
Chambers
 The process of collecting PRA information is as
important as the data itself.
 PRA empowers the local community to
analyze its situation and to improve its
decisions.

3. Features of PRA
 Respecting people’s knowledge and learning from
them.
 Listening to the disadvantaged
 Do not collect data, which you do not need.
 Flexibility: PRA does not stick to fixed plan to action
 Visualization: All data collected from the people are
visualized by them
 Triangulation
 It involves a team of people working with a community
for several days.
 Analysis is done in the field
 The most important step in the PRA process is
“handing over the stick” to the people.

4. Scope of PRA
 PRA tools and techniques could be used at all
levels of project formulation and implementation.
 It could be used by all communities, all experts,
people at all levels and living conditions.
 It could be used to identify, formulate, implement,
monitor and evaluate projects

5. Remember
 Clear your objectives
 Prepare
 Unlearn yourself
 Use your own best judgment at all times
 Do it yourself
 Behaviors and Attitudes
 Nobody knows every thing of something
 Our learning basically are limited to one aspect of
life.

6. SEMI-STRUCTURED
INTERVIEWS
 Prepare the topics for discussion and identify the
individuals or groups you want to talk to. Select an
appropriate time to conduct the interview. Ask open-
ended questions that promote discussion and allow
for flexibility in discussion so the issues that arise
can be fully explored. At least one member of the
PRA team should take notes. After the interview, the
team should discuss the information and write-up a
complete report.
 Individual Interviews
 Key Informant Interviews
 Group Interviews

7. GROUP DISCUSSION
 Select an appropriate time and location where the
meeting will not interrupt activities or be
disturbed. Encourage the participation of a variety
of groups such that wide cross-section of
information and opinions are involved. Promote
techniques that encourage participation. Use
open-ended questions to promote explanations
and opinions. Agree on how the group meeting
should be conducted but allow for flexibility in
conversation so that issues can be explored as
they arise. At least one member of the PRA team
should take notes. After the group discussion, the
team should discuss the information that was

8. SEASONAL CALENDAR
 A seasonal calendar is a participatory tool to
explore seasonal changes (e.g. gender-specific
workload, diseases, income, expenditure etc.)
 . How does income vary over the year for men
and women?
How does expenditure vary over the year for men
and women?
How does rainfall vary over the year?
How does water availability for human
consumption vary over the year?
How does livestock forage availability vary over
the year?
How does credit availability vary over the year?
When are holidays and how many days in which
month

9. FLOW DIAGRAM
 Flow diagrams are used for the systematic
analysis of a wide range of issues whereby a
whole series of cause and effect relationships are
examined. They can act as a basis for discussing
the relationships between different groups,
individuals or issues, and can demonstrate
potential multiplier effects.
 In general, a flow diagram has the main issue
written in a central circle, with elements radiating
from it.

10. TIME LINE
 Involve village elders
 Time lines help identify important past events.

11. Well Being Ranking
 Dividing in 3-5 Groups
 Assigning unique number to each household

12. Village Map
 Maps can be used to identify the comparative
location, resources, hazards, vulnerabilities and
skills etc within an area.
 Social maps can be used to locate houses,
services and infrastructure within an area.

13. Observation
 the systematic description of events, behaviors,
and infrastructure in the social setting chosen for
study

14. Venn diagrams
 Venn diagrams are used to depict key institutions,
organisations and individuals, and their
interaction with the local community.
 Each institution is represented, usually by a
circle. The size of the circle represents the
importance, significance or power of that
institution, and the degree of overlap between the
circles represents the level of interaction that
occurs.

15. Matrix/Tables
 Matrices can be used to express other issues,
where a two dimensional comparison is useful,
such as where frequency or occurrence can be
illustrated in the same way a preference scoring.
 Matrix ranking involves listing the elements down
one side, and the criteria on which they are
judged across the top.

16. Transect Walk
 A transect is a walk or a series of walks through
an area with local informants to learn of the range
of different condition, problems and opportunities
in each of the area.

17. Problem Tree
 To identify a core problem and its effects and root
causes
 Draw a tree and write the starter problem on the
trunk.
 For each root cause, write down its causes on
roots lower down. Use the brainstormed ideas for
this.

18. Daily Activity Chart
 Daily Activity Chart illustrate all of the different
kinds of activities carried out in one day. They are
particularly useful for looking at relative work-
loads between different groups in the community.
Comparisons between clocks show who works
the longest hours, who concentrates on a few
activities and who does a number of tasks in a
day, and who has the most leisure time and
sleep.

19. Focus Group Discussion
 A focus group is a small-group discussion guided
by a trained leader.
 The main difference is that it is focused. The
group has a specific discussion topic. The group's
task is to stay on it, and not wander all over the
place.