PRA DEFINITION AND MEANING Participatory Rural Appraisal PRA

PRA

DEFINITION AND MEANING Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is ‘a systematic, semi-structured approach and method of assessing and understanding. . . village situations with the participation of the people and through the eyes of the people. � It comprises a rich menu of visualization, interviewing and group work methods that have been proven valuable for understanding the local functional values of resources, for revealing the complexities of social structures and for mobilizing and organizing local people. � It is therefore a family of methods and approaches to enable local people to present, share, and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan, to act, monitor, and evaluate’.

PARTICIPATORY RURAL APPRAISAL (PRA) � Principally employed in developing countries in the areas of natural resource management, agriculture, poverty, and food security � Emphasis is on information gathering as a process with defined characteristics, including: Community involvement Holistic and systematic approach Multidisciplinary and interactive methods Flexible responses Emphasis on communication and listening skills Visual display of information

KEY PRINCIPLES OF PRA Participation Flexibility Teamwork Systematic

KEY TECHNIQUES OF PRA Key Techniques Interviews/Discussions Key Participation and Outcomes Individuals Households Focus groups Community meetings Mapping Social mapping Resource mapping Institutional mapping Ranking Problem ranking Preference ranking Wealth ranking Trend Analysis Historical diagramming Seasonal calendars Daily activity charts

MANAGEMENT PRA methods can be used in the forestry sector for planning and assessment of forest development and management programmes in general and JFM related activities in particular. PRA in the case of Forest Management is carried out in two as given below; With field staff In the field / villages with the villagers. PRA would help to gather information about the following; Species and composition of forest. Open Forest areas which can be taken up for plantation. Old plantations with high success rate. MFP, fuel wood and fodder availability. Wildlife. Livestock population in and around the forest. Disease and pest attacks. Forest areas prone to fire.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR FACILITATORS TO CONDUCTPRA No Promise of benefits to the villagers. JFMC/EDC members encourage to share information. All the activities like; social mapping, resource mapping, income and expenditure, value chain analysis, action plan, implementation plan should be done in participatory method. Record of all information on patiently elicit all required information. Use of simple, easily understandable language, preferably in local language/dialect. Creation of enabling environment for the JFMC/EDC members to speak out. Proper care in calculations and plan preparation. Create awareness among the JFMC/EDC members should feel ownership of the Plan. JFMC/EDC members should feel that these plans are meant to enhance their livelihood by simultaneously protecting, conserving and developing the forests. Prioritizing-scoring method to be followed.

DETAILING OF PRA TECHNIQUES AND METHODS MAPPING TRANSECT (LOCATION TRACE) HISTORY PLOT TREND LINES SEASONAL CALENDAR DAILY ROUTINES OCCUPATIONAL ANALYSIS THE VENN DIAGRAM INSTITUTIONAL MAPPING / DIAGRAM MATRIX RANKING WEALTH RANKING ORGANIZING THE PROBLEM AND POTENTIALS FORMULATION OF THE ACTION PLAN

MAPPING A. Community Sketch Maps B. Social Maps C. Physical and Resource Maps D. Topical Maps E. Farm Sketch Maps

TRANSECT (LOCATION TRACE) Transect is intended to gather information via direct observation to the fields by walking through the village area. Transect provides mapping information. It verifies the information on the sketch map. It adds detail on specific characteristics such as; slope drainage, vegetation, water, soils other sources.

HISTORY PLOT • History plot is designed to reveal the history of the community in a certain location by re-exposing important events that occurred in the past. • Those occurrences can be studied and considered in devising future programmes. Sample History / Time Line of a village DATE/YEAR EVENT 1922 Original village established 1947 Independence 1950 Incidents 1960 Incidents 1970 Incidents 1980 Incidents 1990 Incidents 2000 Incidents 2015 Incidents

TREND LINES Trend lines are helpful to understand the resident’s perception of significant charges in the communities over time.

SEASONAL CALENDAR Types of Information to be collected Seasonal Calendar is used to gather information on the condition and problem that repeats in a certain period of time. This technique is useful to identify and study community life pattern, time utilization pattern, activities, problems and repetitious occurrences within a certain period of time, and identifying the focus of the community activities. The seasonal calendar attempts to establish regular cycles or patterns of activities and occurrences within a community over a period of 12 months/one year. Rainfall , water availability Crop pattern, level of production Availability of Minor Forest Produces Availability of food Problems relating to pest and pet/plant diseases Problems relating to wild life Forest fire occurrence Workforce availability Other information relevant to the program

DAILY ROUTINES It highlights the day- to - day / daily time utilization of the community (rich, moderate, poor). In addition it will also consider the daily activities of the women in the community.

OCCUPATIONAL ANALYSIS This technique determine the types of occupations, work distribution, level of income and expenses of the community and the role of the men and women in the occupation sector. Example of Occupational Distribution of Households Occupation Cultivation Horticulture Animal Husbandry Poultry Fishing NTFP Collection, Other Forest based activities Agro & Forest based Industries Other Handicrafts / Artisans Trade & Business , Vending Services a) Jobs (Govt) a) Jobs ( Pvt) a) Wage labour a) Barber a) Washer man a) Communication a) Transportation Others, if any. Total Number of HHs.

THE VENN DIAGRAM Venn Diagram show big is the influence and closeness of the relation of a certain institution with the community and the influence of benefits and roles of various organizations in the village. Priority-1 Priorit y-5 Priority 4 Priority-2 Activity Priority 3

MATRIX RANKING Matrix is to analyze a number of topics that were already identified. The objective is to find the priority between problems and select the most feasible alternative solution suitable with the local conditions. This technique can encourage and promote the intellectual capacity of the community in order to select their solutions and gather definitions of them. TYPES OF RANKING 1. Preference ranking 2. Pair wise ranking 3. Direct matrix ranking 4. Direct matrix scoring

INSTITUTIONAL MAPPING / DIAGRAM This technique is a way to illustrate the user groups, (including village communities, government field staff, commercial interests, NGO researchers) more specifically depend upon forest resources for their livelihood and at the same time it generates revenue for the forest department.

ORGANIZING THE PROBLEM AND POTENTIALS Organize various problems that occurred previously identified by other techniques. These problems are arranged and organized based on the priority of their resolution. a) Arrange all the information (problems and potentials) into one efficient arrangement. b) Gather cause-effect relations between various problems. c) Determine the priority problems that need to be resolved first. d) As a means to raise community awareness of the problems the face.

FORMULATION OF THE ACTION PLAN This activity is the effort to devise a concrete action that will be implemented within a certain period of time, if possible in the group level, RT etc. The action plan is used in the consideration process of the program planning and donor organizations to determine the assistance in various aspects of development, based on priorities determined by the community. Proportional piling is applied in the middle of discussion to probe additional responses. We do not start discussion with materials of proportional piling. Two situations could be mentioned. a) Use of grain seeds, small stones and sand piles. If you want to compare between 5 – 10 items, then you should divide the materials into proportion of their importance. The result is thus, 1 st 2 nd. . . 10 th important. b) “Hundred seeds methods” to simplify an arithmetic problem, issue 100 seeds if grain etc to the informants. Let them proportionally allocate the seeds. Then you come up with percentages (20%, 60% etc) out of the proportions pie charts could be constructed.

THE EIGHT STAGES IN PROBLEM SOLVING WITH PRA 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Rapport formation Understanding Reframing Solution searching Solution planning and commitment development Implementation Evaluation and adjustment: Ending and consolidation

ENTRY POINT ACTIVITIES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Community hall & rest houses Village council hall and village court Approach road & foot path Culvert & Bridge construction School building and furniture. LPG connection, improved chullas , solar lights and cooking sets Rainwater harvesting tank & water supply Waiting shed Multipurpose building & marketing shed, Seed money to Self Help Groups (SHGs). Identification and implementation of Income Generating Activities(IGA) like; a) Dairy b) Poultry c) Piggery, d) Goat and Sheep Rearing, e) Bee Keeping f) Floriculture g) Fishery h) Weaving etc.

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