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4.2 Carrying out participatory appraisal Four clusters of action research techniques are especially relevant for dealing with population dynamics and the local environment in an integrated way:
The clusters above can be adapted, focused and combined according to the identified set of research questions, the needs of the community, and the relevant environment and development initiatives that may exist or are being set up in the area. While the descriptions included here assume that the participatory action research is done prior to starting any new initiative, the same techniques could also be used for assessing (and possibly re-focusing) an existing project. Repeated collection of the same data over time will allow comparisons of the situation before and after the project intervention, which is helpful for evaluation. In the following we will describe generic approaches, but those will obviously need to be bent around the specific questions to be answered and information already available. Participatory environmental appraisal (environment profile) The purpose of a 'participatory environmental appraisal' is to assess the situation of natural resources in the community's territory. A well-run appraisal can help to enhance or focus the awareness and concern of interest groups and the community at large on natural resource management. Interest groups and the community may find out together what is locally achievable to prevent or reduce environmental degradation. The participatory environmental appraisal can also provide data to improve district-level planning for natural resource management. A typical participatory environmental appraisal will use a combination of two or more of the following methods of data collection:
Literacy is not necessary for participation in any of these exercises, which can be carried out with elders, women, men, youngsters and even children. For an environmental appraisal, the most desirable or appropriate participants will be community members directly engaged in exploiting (using) and/or managing (regulating the use of) key natural resources (such as soil, fuel wood, timber, forestry products, fish, game, irrigation water, etc.). Due to the typical patterns of labor division by gender in most rural economies, participation of both men and women representatives from the same households, in joint or separate settings, is strongly recommended.
An observational walk across the territory with interest group members is often a good starting point. As much as possible, it is desirable that the walk follows a meaningful route, such as a straight line across a slope valley or going downstream-upstream. Things to watch for include changes in the landscape (e.g., forests, pasture, barren land, cultivated plots, beaches, etc.), relevant environmental features (e.g., vegetation coverage, types of crops, native plants and animals, water sources, types of soil, erosion phenomena, etc.) and interaction of people and resources (e.g., people collecting products, people using some areas for specific purposes, settlements, field enclosures, etc.). These observations can be discussed with participants and persons met on the way, and then jotted down in a logbook. Ideally, the jotting will be a combination of sketches and words and will be jointly prepared by the support team and local PAR participants. See Figure 4.1: Example of a slope-valley transect Because of the objectivity and detail in pictures, photography can also be used. Yet, the method has some drawbacks, including cost, delays between taking the pictures and being able to show the results to the community and difficulties showing slides in remote areas that lack electricity. In addition, the method can shift ownership of the process away from the community because the technology may not be locally available or locally controlled. The analysis of the data will be more meaningful when done with the active participation of concerned interest group members. An important step in this analysis is the creation of a transect representation of the territory, similar to the one presented in Figure 4.1 (see also Annex B, section B.1), which shows information related to the physical and human geography, and provides brief descriptions of problems and opportunities. See Figure 4.2: Example of a historical transect, Gamtalao village Participatory mapping (see Figure 4.3a and Annex B, section B.2) is also a useful and exciting tool for environmental appraisal. In participatory mapping, community members are asked to locate relevant environmental features and resources on a self-created map of their territory. Such maps can be drawn on the ground or a floor, a chalkboard in a school or a sheet from a flipchart. They can be either entirely constructed by local people or facilitated by the support team, who can provide a base map of basic features obtained from aerial photographs (e.g., forest borders, roads, and crop land) and then invite the participants to complete the picture. The map may represent purely physical features, such as roads, houses, soil types and vegetation, but it can also include social phenomena, e.g., access to resources by specific groups or household wealth. Usually, building up the map provides an occasion to discuss several phenomena and resource management issues. Once completed by the group, the map can be copied onto a flipchart, possibly by a local artist. See Figure 4.3a: Example of mapping exercise (present day) Information on the current environmental situation provided by the transect walks or mapping become most enlightening and effective when reviewed from a historical perspective. This can be done by discussing the findings with some local elders who can recall details about the environmental situation and local interactions with the environment more than one generation ago (at least 20-30 years previously). The historical data produced in this way (see Figure 4.2, Figure 4.3b and Annex B, section B.3) will permit focusing on environmental changes that have occurred during the last generation. Importantly, the historical perspective will help in assessing how the local environment has been influenced by the community's economic or cultural needs, by population dynamics and by external phenomena (e.g., expanding or shrinking prices for certain crops or natural resources, wars and civil disruption, etc.). The development and analysis of a historical transect and/or map can in fact become the central and most useful moment in the participatory appraisal of population dynamics and the local environment, stimulating lively debate and discussion. See Figure 4.3b: Example of historical mapping exercise (20 years ago) A comparison at different points in time can also be projected into the future - e.g., participants can be asked what they expect the situation to be like in 30 years if the present trends continue. This question is best coupled with a historical mapping exercise that compares the present and past situations. Discussions about alternative courses of action arise easily after this type of analysis. Key questions to ask the participants include:
Alternative visions of the future will likely involve discussions surrounding the use of land and other natural resources in the next 20-30 years. Community members may wish to produce a third map, depicting the ideal future, in which, for instance, common lands and resources are well managed; water supply and sanitation are greatly improved; and soil conservation practices, agro-forestry and other efforts are in place to rehabilitate croplands and pasture. When a mapping exercise is completed, the PAR support team and community participants may wish to transfer the map of current environmental and social features to a computer mapping software such as Map Maker (see Annex C, section C.2). This easy-to-use 'shareware' package allows one to create a basic geographic information system, in which layers of information can be added together to create maps of varying complexity, and specific variables (such as the size of land holdings) can be stored in a simple data base. These locally created maps can also be compared with professional maps to locate specific details. Whether the map is transferred to a computer and printed out, or copied on to a flipchart, it is important to remember that the map belongs to the community. In other words, the support team may want to make a copy for their own use, but the original copy should stay in the community. Another way to build on the information generated by the environmental appraisal is to use ranking exercises (see Annex B, section B.8). Ranking exercises are a way for community interest groups to prioritize their concerns or preferences about the situation of different natural resources (see Table 4.3 below). Table 4.3
Ranking exercises carried out by gender-based groups (possibly also sub-divided by age) (see Table 4.4 below) are a useful way to initiate a gender analysis of the collected information (see Annex B, section B.13). When combined with data on gender-related rights and responsibilities in resource management, the gathered information offers a fairly complete picture of gender-based interests and roles (actual and potential) in the community. Table 4.4
The final method we will mention here is slide language, which is a way of using photographed images (pictures or slides) to promote reflection and awareness and/or collect specific information. Local people are trained to use a simple (or disposable) camera to take pictures of significant aspects and good and bad features of their lives and their environment. It is important to recruit a variety of photographers (e.g., men and women, farmers and traders, the wealthy and the poor) as each will have a different perspective of what is relevant, and this can reveal important differences in environmental perceptions. The pictures or slides are exhibited and discussed in a group or community meeting. The basic steps for using slide language are described in Annex B, section B.12. Slide language is an attractive and fun way of identifying environmental issues and the various perspectives on these in the community concerned. Letting the community members identify the messages and the scenes to be used encourages them to study and analyze their environment, and it is an effective way of giving a voice to disadvantaged groups. However, slides are a relatively expensive tool, they take time to develop (especially if the film must be sent away) and slide projectors may not be available in all contexts. Where slide projectors are not available, or there is no electricity, photo montages may be a suitable alternative. Whatever the tool (or combination of tools) used for data collection and analysis, a major aim of a participatory environmental assessment is the creation and discussion of a detailed list of environmental concerns (issues, problems) and key resources as perceived by the community. These may be related solely to the research questions identified at the beginning of the PAR, or expanded on these. This list and the findings which support it can be communicated back to a broader community audience and re-discussed for validation and further ideas. Brain-storming and group discussion can facilitate making amendments and additions, so that a group consensus on the list can be reached. Participatory censuses (population profile) In many countries, fairly good data about the size and dynamic trends of populations are available from national censuses and civil registers. These data include measures of mortality, natality, fertility, natural growth and migration (see Annex A for definitions and formulas). Valuable as this information is, it normally has limitations. The census data are generally analyzed at the national, provincial and district levels; and a breakdown of census information for small municipalities or rural villages is seldom available. Census data are usually collected only at quite long intervals, e.g., once per decade, and thus may be out of date for specific local needs. Moreover, civil registers in rural areas are generally not reliable: births may be registered with a delay of several months, infant deaths may not be recorded at all, and temporary and seasonal migration may not be considered.
To get an accurate and current profile of the population situation and trends at the community or village level, a local participatory census may be appropriate. This exercise has a two-fold purpose: to provide valid, reliable and up-to-date demographic information based on the local people's knowledge of local vital events (i.e., births, deaths and migrations); and to arouse local concern - if appropriate - with respect to existing patterns in population dynamics. Two main data collection methods can be used to conduct a participatory census:
Social mapping is an exciting and popular exercise in most communities. It is carried out in a participatory fashion, similar to the natural resource map discussed in the previous section of this chapter. Community people collaborate in drawing a map of the territory and locating households and compounds. The community members involved in the exercise are then asked to recall the number of people living in each household/compound, including all members by age and gender. This participatory technique is extremely effective for performing a rapid, low-cost census in small communities, even where literacy rates are very low. The validity of participatory census figures generated by the local people is usually quite high (see Box 4.4 above). Nevertheless, important information about vital events and migration might fail to be collected in this exercise. If detailed and accurate information is needed about population dynamics (which depends on the concerns and issues identified by the participants) and the population of the settlement is relatively large (for instance, more than 100 households) a door-to-door household census is recommended. This method relies on semi-structured interviews (see Annex B, section B.6) with each household of the village or locality. As some important questions in the interviews are related to pregnancies, deliveries and children, the preferred respondents are generally women. All adult and elderly women living in the household can be given the opportunity to contribute. Examples of guides and summary forms for a semi-structured interview for use in a participatory census exercise are presented in Boxes 4.5 and 4.6 (below).
Ideally, the household interviews would be carried out in the local language by literate persons of the community, preferably female. Adult women, however, are often busy with economic and/or domestic activities and may have little time or interest in interviewing others. As an alternative, teenage girls could be trained as interviewers. Male interviewers may be considered if female school enrollment and literacy are especially low, but gender rules and interaction within the community need to be carefully considered before making such a decision. Questionnaire design and interviewer training will also need to consider any local cultural sensitivity about openly discussing pregnancies, births and deaths (for instance, if the death of a child is considered for any reason a stigma to the family, the local child mortality may end up being underestimated). Key elements to the success of the exercise include a relaxed but attentive attitude during the interview, good note-taking, and the quality and promptness of systematically organizing the raw data collected. Role-playing among members of the participatory census team may help them to acquire and develop these skills in a practical and active manner. Analysis of the data from a census can be aimed at developing local demographic indicators. Simplification of calculations and use of local concepts and terms may render this component of the exercise more relevant and accessible for the participation of community members. Box 4.7 presents a hypothetical example of information tallied in a participatory analysis of census interview results.
The census exercise provides good occasions to discuss the local population situation and dynamics with various interest groups and the community at large. Meetings can be arranged for this purpose with different community audiences. Pie charts, bar charts and pictograms can be useful to illustrate the results of the census. Ideally, the community would have gone through a historical mapping exercise and the maps could be discussed again in the light of the data collected on population dynamics. The PAR support team may also bring in the identified research topics by asking questions such as:
By answering these questions, the community and the support team members will clarify issues, perceptions and priorities. The answers, and associated discussions, should be recorded for future reference. The measures of population size and dynamics obtained in the local census can also be used to calculate the more sophisticated demographic indicators, such as life expectancy, presented elsewhere in this manual (see Annex A). In this way, the participatory census can provide accurate local data for a district or municipal demographic database and be used for local demographic projections (see Annex C). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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