Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
and Related Techniques

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is the name for an increasing number of of participatory approaches and techniques which emphasize local knowledge and enable local people to make their own appraisal, analysis, and plans. PRA uses a variety of techniques and group exercises to enable information sharing, analysis, and action among stakeholders. Although originally developed for use in rural areas, and derived from RRA, PRA is now used in a large number of different of circumstances. The main purpose of participatory techniques is to enable development practitioners, government officials, and local people to work together to plan context appropriate programs.

PRA Participatory Methods Some Problems with PRA Bias in Participatory Methods Participatory GIS References and Further Reading   See also: Participatory Research & Technology Development Indigenous Knowledge Tools for Finding out: Enquiry & Discovery

Participatory Rural Appraisal, or PRA, evolved from Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) during the early 1990s. RRA was itself an attempt to steer a middle course between brief unstructured visits to rural communities which bore a risk of bias towards more accessible areas and more powerful interests ("development tourism"), and questionnaire surveys which were costly and time-consuming to analyze. RRA sought methods which were rapid and cost-effective but allowed outsiders to tap into the indigenous knowledge of farmers.

PRA took this further by encouraging farmers not only to give information, but to determine the methods and categories used to get information, and to participate in the use of that information. It has spread rapidly so that it is used virtually worldwide (in developed as well as developing countries), by a variety of institutions (large donors and governments as well as NGOs and researchers), in a variety of sub-sectors, and for a variety of objectives (research, project identification, project planning, project monitoring).

In contrast to structured surveys and questionnaires, PRA works primarily with qualitative data. To ensure that information is valid and reliable, PRA teams follow the rule of thumb that at least three sources must be consulted or techniques must be used to investigate the same topics.

The number of available "PRA tools" - primarily visualization techniques - has grown. A growing body of PRA training techniques means that outsiders from many backgrounds and disciplines can participate in PRA (e.g. administrators and natural scientists as well as social scientists). PRA can be practiced either as a one-off event (at various stages of the project cycle) or as an extended process which allows feedback and mutual learning between farmers and outsiders, and direct local input into research or development planning (see Participatory Research & Participatory Technology Development). Some would argue that only direct local input of this nature can truly be called PRA, but in practice many institutions use "PRA" to refer to one-off, informal information gathering, without any subsequent process of participatory planning. "Participatory Situation Analysis" is also sometimes used for PRA at the initial stage of a research or development project.

Chambers (1994) lists a number of key principles shared by RRA and PRA:

• a reversal of learning: outsiders learning from local people
• learning rapidly and progressively
• offsetting the usual biases of development enquiry towards the powerful and the accessible
• optimizing tradeoffs between the costs and the benefits of detailed research
• triangulating or cross-checking between methods
• seeking diversity

and a number of principles additionally stressed in PRA

• facilitating investigation, analysis, presentation and learning by local people
• self-critical awareness of the investigators
• personal responsibility
• sharing of information and ideas
  

Participatory Methods

In practice, PRA is best known for the repertoire of techniques, largely visual, it uses to gain information to farmers, feed it back to farmers and present it to a wider audience. Some of the best known techniques, and those most relevant to livestock, include:

Semi-structured interviews:	The use of flexible checklists rather than questionnaires. These must be the backbone of any PRA activity, including that for livestock research. The term Semi-structured is the key component - checklists should be used flexibly to aid the interviewers and to ensure that nothing relevant is missed out, rather than as questionnaires.
Time-lines:	These are either verbal or visual chronologies of important trends or events that influence a topic under consideration.	For more
Transect walks:	Also called "Transect Mapping", these tools are used to gain information on different natural resource zones and forms of land use around a community. Transect mapping is a tool used to describe the location and distribution of resources, the landscape and main land uses. In addition it allow participants to identify constraints and opportunities with specific reference to locations or particular types of environment encountered along the route of the the transect. Classically it involves the investigator walking, with members of the community, a more or less straight line through the community and areas adjoining it, and asking questions from a checklist, (as with a semi-structured interview) about the different natural resource and land use zones. These questions can concern the local classifications of land, soil and vegetation types, the indigenous knowledge people have about them, the use they make of them, and the constraints and opportunities they can identify. The results of a transect walk can be presented as a sketch diagram, which can be drawn participatorily with the help of local people, or subsequently by the investigator as a summary of discussions (or both).
Participatory sketch mapping:	Also called Participatory Mapping. This is an informal method for collating and plotting information on the occurrence, distribution, access and use of resources within the economic and cultural domain of a specific community. It is a simple tool, easily adopted and replicated at community level. The farmers draw "maps" showing environmental variability, seasonal movements, traditional territories etc. These can be drawn on the ground with a stick, particularly if farmers are unfamiliar with paper and pens, (in which case they will need to be copied or photographed, but with digital cameras this is an easy step). They can also be drawn directly on large sheets of paper (in which case it can be useful to use different colour marker pens). Early enthusiasts of the method stressed the importance of farmers physically drawing maps themselves with local materials, but in many cases good results can be obtained when farmers simply advise an investigator or assistant who draws. In many cases also, the opportunity to use the map as a springboard for semi-structured interview may be just as valuable, or more valuable, than the map itself. This technique has proved very useful with livestock producers, especially with semi-extensive and extensive systems, but even in intensive systems maps can also be used to explore fodder resources, marketing, input supply and service provision linkages. A related tool, Social Mapping, generates spatially referenced information on demography, health, economic activities, religion, ethno-linguistic characteristics, infrastructure and other socio-economic factors.
Information Maps	Closely related to Social Mapping and to Participatory Sketch Mapping, an information map shows the various sources and channels of communication that people use. With a group of smallstock keepers, you can create a map which shows where they get information from and who they go to for advice. You can show how important each source is to them by adjusting the size of the symbols on the map, and how easy or difficult it is to access them by the distance between each source and the farmers.	For more
Seasonal calendars:	Seasonal calendars, showing for example, the seasonal availability of different feeds, or the inputs required at different times of year, can be drawn on the ground or on paper, typically as a matrix with the months of the year (western months or some local alternative) along the horizontal axis, and the different feeds or other variables involved along the vertical axis. As with maps, calendars can be drawn on the ground or on paper, using local materials or symbols made with pens, and by farmers themselves or with varying degrees of assistance from investigators. Calendars are a crucial tool in participatory livestock research. Calendars can be used to obtain information on seasonal labour demands and on seasonal feed availability and use. For this purpose they can be combined with ranking and scoring techniques. If this is done, the remarks on ranking and scoring of feeds (see Matrix Scoring below) need to be taken into account, and it also needs to be made clear whether feeds available within a particular month are being compared against each other, or whether the use or value of feed is being compared across months (in which case, it must be clear if the comparison is of quality or of quantity and of availability or use).
Wealth ranking:	Also called Participatory Wealth ranking. Ranking of households into different classes defined by locally accepted indices of wealth or well being, or their opposites, i.e. poverty. This is a complex and time consuming technique and one that demands sensitivity, and investigators seeking to use it are advised to read the book by Grandin (1988) or some other introductory text.
Proportional piling	Farmers can be asked to represent quantities with piles of some loose material such as small stones or grain. This can be used in various ways, some of them similar to the uses of ranking or scoring (see below), bearing in mind the difficulties of precise quantification, particularly of unlike things. Although it provides no absolute figures, proportional piling is a simple, visual method useful for determining relative values, according to the respondents' perspective. Similar to many other participative techniques, it also provides a basis for further discussion, and can be used to compare current and past practices as well as seasonal differences. Pile sorting might have particular use in prioritization of research topics.
Matrix scoring or ranking:	Listing and ranking of, for example livestock species, by the attributes or outputs for which they are most valued. PRA uses a variety of techniques to score or rank aspects of livelihoods and production systems (for example, animal feeds) against different criteria (for example, nutritive quality, palatability, availability). Ranking is simply putting things in order, from best to worst, smallest to largest, etc. Some specialists in PRA recommend pairwise ranking, where (for example) each feed is compared to each of the others, but it is often simpler to use cards with pictures of the feeds or their names in a local language, or to write ranks onto a matrix of the feeds and the criteria by which they are evaluated. Scoring involves farmers assigning a numerical value to each of a set of things, perhaps between zero and ten. This is classically done on a matrix, drawn on the ground using local materials or on paper.

Ranking and scoring techniques can be used to evaluate constraints to livestock production, the comparative value of different feeds, and the different objectives/outputs of a livestock species. In the first case care needs to be taken in interpreting results: constraints operate in combination and the one that is most obviously limiting is not necessarily the most fundamentally important. A lack of information, if cited as a constraint, does not necessarily imply that available or potentially available information would solve the current problems.

Ranking of feeds also presents problems, and needs care when communicating with interviewees. Are they being asked to compare feeds in the quantities available to them, or per unit weight or volume? Can there be meaningful comparison between cut and carried fodders, purchased feeds and grazing? Are feeds being evaluated on only one axis or on more than one axis representing different purposes such as energy and milk production? Matrix ranking of feeds against several criteria is one partial solution here, but these questions need to be faced. What is being asked of producers must be communicated with precision and if possible in a standardized way across individual interviews.

Ranking of production objectives or outputs of different livestock species (for instance using cards with drawings of a bucket of milk, a plough, a currency note) can be a very useful tool, though perhaps less so in dairy systems where production objectives are relatively clear. Again, care has to be taken in specifying whether objectives are being compared for each species or vice versa. Even more than the other tools mentioned here, ranking should be carried out wherever possible separately for male and female farmers, and for farms of different sizes.

Some proponents of PRA would argue that excessive concentration on these tools diverts attention from the participatory ethos and objective of good PRA, and allows donors and governments to use "PRA" for non-participatory approaches. Others argue that the tools are less culturally-neutral than is sometimes claimed, and that PRA is a poor substitute for prolonged research by anthropologists or other professional social scientists.

Participatory tools are particularly sensitive to the composition of the participating group or groups, and great care needs to be taken to assess this when analyzing the information gathered by participatory techniques.

It is also important to be clear on the objectives of "PRA" and the degree to which an organization is using PRA for participatory planning or to gain information which will be analysed and used elsewhere. The latter is in many contexts a perfectly valid objective. If there is clarity of objectives the tools, used wisely, can be very useful in a variety of contexts.

There are now formal or informal networks of PRA practitioners in most developing countries. Those wishing to carry out PRA are advised to seek training from recognized trainers with prior experience.

Participatory methods are valid and flexible tools that offer significant insight into the perceptions and realities of the poor. Nevertheless, while the aims and objectives of participation have expanded over the years, the tools themselves have changed little. As a result it is now suggested that the actual practice of participation often falls short of meeting the stated goals of empowerment (see Livestock Development Group, 2003). In particular, the expertise and exposure of the practitioner, or team involved in the participatory studies, are seen to have a major influence on the outcomes. This provides an inbuilt opportunity for bias on the part of the practitioners to influence the results. In addition, communities inevitably bring their own set of influences and biases into the process. Indeed, it is argued that many of the participatory methods primarily provide mechanisms for informing practitioners, and have no real impact on the lives of the poor. In contrast, the conduct and alaysis of quantitative surveys (see Structured Surveys and Data Collection Methods) has endeavoured to remove the practitioner's influence, introduce statistical rigour, and thus avoid problems of bias. (Nevertheless, bias can be introduced, for example in the design of questionnaires, most especially in what might be left out of a set of questions).

For further detailed discussion of this important topic, see the report: "Poverty and Participation: An Anlaysis of Bias in Participatory Methods"

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Methods On The Move: A review of veterinary uses of participatory approaches and methods focussing on experiences in dryland Africa

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R6776: Evaluation of farmer participatory approaches to livestock production research

A Guide to Indicators & Methods for Assessing the Contribution of Livestock Keeping to Livelihoods of the Poor

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