Participatory rural
appraisal
Presented By,
Venkatesh C M
Dept of Social Work
Sri H D Devegowda Govt. First Grade College, Paduvalahippe
Participatory rural appraisal and related techniques
• What is participatory rural appraisal?
• Appraisal – The finding out of information about problems, needs, and
potential in a village. It is the first stage in any project.
• Participatory – Means that people are involved in the process – a
“bottom-up” approach
• Rural – The techniques can be used in any situation, urban or rural,
with both literate and illiterate people.
Continued..
• PRA is intended to enable local communities to conduct their own
analysis and to plan and take action (Chambers R. 1992)
• PRA involves project staff learning together with villagers about the
village.
• The aim of PRA is to help strengthen the capacity of villagers to plan,
make decisions, and to take action towards improving their own
situation.
• Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is considered one of the popular
and effective approaches to gather information in rural areas.
• This approach was developed in early 1990s
Continued..
• PRA is a methodology of learning rural life and their environment
from the rural people.
• It is based on the principle that local people are creative and capable
and can do their own investigations, analysis, and planning.
• It requires researchers / field workers to act as facilitators to help local
people conduct their own analysis, plan and take action accordingly.
The main rules are:
a. Do not interrupt - do not interrupt when someone is talking in
his/her turn at interviewing or probing for information. And also do
not interrupt the respondent.
b. Do not assume - do not assume either that you know the answer or
that information is wrong about something.
c. Do not lead or give clues - do not lead or give clues to the
respondent with your preconceived ideas. Stay neutral while asking
questions so that you do not lead the respondent.
Five key principles:
• There are five key principles that form the basis of any PRA activity
no matter what the objectives or setting:
1. PARTICIPATION
2. FLEXIBILITY
3. TEAMWORK
4. OPTIMAL IGNORANCE
5. SYSTEMATIC
Process of PRA:
• 1. Selection of PRA team members
• 2. Objectives
• 3. Formation of sub-topics
• 4. Selection of methods, designs
and respondents
• 5. Interview
• 6. Sub-team meeting
• 7. Whole team meeting
• 8. Report writing
PRA Tools:
• PRA offers a "basket of techniques" from which those most
appropriate for the context can be selected
• Some of the PRA tools that we are going to
use:
• Interview/Survey
• Transect Walk
• Timeline
• Seasonal Calendar
• Venn Diagram
• Social Mapping
• Resource Mapping
Transect walks and guided field walks
• The researcher and key informants
conduct a walking tour
• Through areas of interest to
observe, to listen, to identify
different zones or conditions, and
to ask questions to identify
problems and possible solutions.
• This method lets the outsider learn
about topography, soils, land use,
forests, watersheds, and
community assets.
Timelines:
• The facilitators meet small groups of
villagers and discuss with them the most
important events in the community’s past
and prepare with the information a
historical timeline which serves as the base
for further work
• It is important to involve different groups of
the communities to get their usually
different perspectives
• The timeline with basic events can be used
for focused discussions on problems, social
and technological innovations or on
communities history of co-operations and
activities which helped them to solve in
past problems successfully.
Social mapping:
• Social mapping is a PRA method that involves the
sketching/drawing of houses and other social
facilities and infrastructure (i.e. temple, stores, rice
mills, school, pharmacy, trails and roads, water
pumps, irrigation and recreation facilities) in a
village.
• These features have usually not been well specified
in the village vision setting and village land-use maps
• It helps to visualize and situate the location of
households and other social facilities/infrastructure in
a village
• It serves as a baseline for planning, implementation,
monitoring, and evaluation of village development
activities (including selection of village organizing
strategy).
Time chart or Seasonal calendar:
• A seasonal calendar is a PRA method that
determines patterns and trends throughout the
year in a certain village.
• It can be used for purposes such as rainfall
distribution, food availability, agricultural
production, income and expenditures, health
problems, and others.
• The seasonal calendar can also be used to collect
information on how villagers allocate their time as
well as their labour in various activities within the
village (see handout).
• A time chart or seasonal calendar is prepared by
drawing a two-dimensional matrix and writing the
time period (i.e. month, year) on an axis and the
different village activities on the other axis.
• Villagers are encouraged to fill in the matrix of the
chart/calendar by marking the grid or by placing
stones or other objects on the matrix
Venn diagram on Institutions
• The Venn Diagram on Institutions
shows institutions, organisations,
groups and important individuals found
in the village, as well as the villagers
view of their importance in the
community.
• Additionally, the Diagram explains who
participates in these groups in terms of
gender and wealth.
• The Institutional Relationship Diagram
also indicates how close the contact
and cooperation between those
organisations and groups are.
Resource Mapping
• The Village Resource Map is a
tool that helps us to learn about a
community and its resource base.
• The primary concern is not to
develop an accurate map but to
get useful information about local
perceptions of resources
• Scare and Enough
• Equal Access
Daily Routines
• Apart from seasonal pattern of a year daily routines or
schedules can be prepared
• Usually daily labour schedule of family members reveals the
routine activities
• among different household members and the time of the day.
• Such information are sufficient enough to identify critical times
for peak labour usage and
• gender related issues related to overwork of women
• House wife
• Labour/Employee
• Elder
Report writing:
• Briefly report the PRA activities undertaken s
• Prepare the poster and charts, and display at the valedictory program
• Outcome of Survey and the observations and opinions made by the
participants of the PRA activities mentioned in your report
• Later it can be submitted to the concerned authorities
Thank You
