Implementing Integrated Land Use Planning: A step-by-step guide for rural areas
PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE: ANNEX 2
Annex 2
OVERVIEW OF PARTICIPATORY RURAL APPRAISAL METHODS
Table 15. Listing of PRA methods (Chambers, 1994)
| No | Method | Summary |
| 1 | Secondary sources | Files, reports, maps, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, articles, books |
| 2 | Semi-structured interviews | Using a mental or written checklist, but open-ended and following up on unexpected answers. Increasingly using visual as well as traditional verbal methods |
| 3 | Key informants | Identifying and engaging local experts, sometimes through participatory social mapping |
| 4 | Group interviews and activities | Of various kinds (casual, specialist/focus, deliberately structured, community/neighbourhood) |
| 5 | ‘Do it yourself’ | Asking to be taught, being taught and performing village tasks (e.g. weeding, ploughing, mudding huts, drawing water, collecting wood etc.) |
| 6 | ‘They do it’ | Villagers, mingled or in groups (women, poor people, teachers, farmers, village specialists, students etc.) as investigators and researchers: doing transects, observing/interviewing other villagers, analyzing data and presenting results |
| 7 | Participatory analysis of secondary sources | Most common is the analysis of aerial photographs or satellite images |
| 8 | Participatory mapping and modeling | Local people use the ground, floor or paper to map social, demographic, health, natural resource (soil, trees and forests, water resources etc.) services or opportunities, or construct three-dimensional models of their land. |
| 9 | Transect walks | Walking with/by local people through an area, observing, asking, listening, discussing, identifying different zones, soils, land uses, vegetation, crops, livestock, local and introduced technologies, etc.; seeking problems, solutions and opportunities; mapping and diagramming the zones, resources and findings. |
| 10 | Time lines and trend and change analysis | Chronologies of events, listing major remembered events in a village with approximate dates, people’s accounts how things close to them have changed, ecological histories, changes in land use, cropping patterns, customs and practices, changes and trends in population, migration, education, health etc., as well as the causes of changes and trends. |
| 11 | Oral and local histories | Oral and local histories of e.g. a crop, an animal, a tree, a pest, a weed |
| 12 | Seasonal calendars | By major season or month seasonal changes, such as days and distribution of rain, crops, non-agricultural labor, prices, animal fodder, income etc. |
| 13 | Daily time use analysis | Relative amounts of time spent on various activities, eventually indicating seasonal variations. |
| 14 | Livelihood analysis | Stability, crises and coping, relative income, expenditure, credit and debt, multiple activities, often by month or season. |
| 15 | Participatory linkage diagramming | Mapping out linkages, flows, connections, causality. |
| 16 | Venn diagramming | Identifying individuals and institutions important in/for the community. More details in Box 3. |
| 17 | Well-being and wealth grouping and ranking | Identifying groups or rankings of households according to wellbeing or wealth, including those considered poorest or worst off. An application of ‘social mapping’. |
| 18 | Analysis of difference | Identifying difference between groups, including problems and preferences, especially by gender, social group, wealth/poverty, occupation or age. |
| 19 | Matrix scoring and ranking | Analyzing various categories (e.g. stakeholders, crop varieties, methods of soil and water conservation) against defined criteria. See example in Box 8. |
| 20 | Estimates and quantification | Using local measures, judgements and materials (e.g. seeds, stones, sticks) as counters. Sometimes combined with participatory maps, models, matrices etc. |
| 21 | Key probes | Questions that can lead directly to key issues, such as “What vegetable, tree, crop, crop variety, type of animal, tool …would you like to try out?” |
| 22 | Stories, portraits and case studies | Such as a household history and profile, coping with a crisis, how a conflict was resolved or not. |
| 23 | Team contracts and interactions | Agreement between team members how they will operate, behave and interact, including changing pairs, evening discussions, mutual criticism etc. |
| 24 | Presentation and analysis | Maps, models, diagrams and findings presented by local people and/or outsiders, checked, corrected and discussed |
| 25 | Sequences | The use of methods in sequence, e.g. participatory social mapping leading to identification of key informants. |
| 26 | Participatory planning, budgetting, implementation and monitoring | Local people prepare their own plans, budgets and schedules, take action, monitor and evaluate progress. |
| 27 | Group discussions and brainstorming | By local people alone, by focus groups of local people, by local people and outsiders together, or by outsiders alone. |
| 28 | Short standard schedules or protocols | Either for very short and quick questionnaires, or to record data (e.g. census information from social mapping ) in a standard and comparable way. |
| 29 | Report writing | Without delay, in the field before returning to office, or by persons designated in advance to do so immediately on completion of a sequence of PRA activities. |