Participatory Appraisal
Brief Description:
Participatory Appraisal is a broad empowerment approach that seeks to build community knowledge and encourages grassroots action. It uses a lot of visual methods, making it especially useful for participants who find other methods of participation intimidating or complicated.
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Description:
The term Participatory Appraisal describes a family of approaches that enable local people to identify their own priorities and make their own decisions about the future, with the organising agency facilitating, listening and learning.
Participatory Appraisal uses visual and flexible tools to ensure that everyone can join in regardless of background. It can be carried out in a place where people already meet in their everyday lives.
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A commonly encountered problem is that as Participatory Appraisal uses very accessible tools, it is often used as an information providing exercise that does not follow through to facilitate decision-making within the community.
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Used For:
In the long-mid term Participatory Appraisal should be an ongoing cycle of research, learning and collective action.
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The long-term goal of this approach is to empower and enable people to analyse and tackle their problems themselves. In the shorter term Participatory Appraisal can be used to map local priorities and understandings of issues.
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Suitable participants:
Local community members in larger or smaller groups.
Since everyone does not have to meet at the same place or at the same time it can involve a very large number of people without requiring a large venue.
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A key principle of Participatory Appraisal is to ask 'who is not participating?' and ensure that the process actively includes members of the community that are not normally involved in consultations.
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Cost:
Can be expensive at first as it is very important that people running the process are properly trained in Participatory Appraisal approaches and values.
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However, if local community members learn the approaches themselves and become more confident the costs of hiring external help may be reduced.
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Time Requirements:
To get the most out of Participatory Appraisal it should be an ongoing process.
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When To Use / What It Can Deliver:
- You should use Participatory Appraisal when you are willing to let the community take control, when you want to base your actions on local knowledge and when you want to reach out to very diverse members of a community.
- Participatory Appraisal can deliver empowered participants, better relationships between participant groups, reliable and valid mapping of local knowledge and priorities, action and energy as well as being a good tool to make decisions with.
When Not To Use / What It Cannot Deliver:
- You should not use Participatory Appraisal when you want rapid results.
Strengths:
- Can be extremely inclusive, flexible, and empowering if run well;
- The knowledge produced by local community researchers has been proven to be highly reliable, and can help to identify and tackle underlying issues to problems rather than just the symptoms;
- When local community members have been trained to facilitate a process, this capacity remains within the community for the future;
- It is a creative and flexible approach that can complement and draw in other techniques as and when needed throughout the process.
- It can draw on participatory arts and drama techniques to reach particular groups, or explore particular issues.
Weaknesses:
- Do not underestimate the need for training and experience among those running the process;
- Can be expensive to set up;
- To be truly effective, a Participatory Appraisal exercise will need more time than a one off event, and this might be difficult to fund and organise;
- It can also be challenging and time consuming to collate material from numerous events.
Origin:
International Development
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Participatory Appraisal was developed in Africa and Asia and is used across the globe.
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Unfortunately this has led to a confusing multitude of acronyms used to describe it: e.g. PLA (Participatory Learning and Action), and PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal).
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We have chosen to use the term Participatory Appraisal because it is common in the UK.
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Case Studies:
Related Methods
Restrictions In Use
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Further Information
Contact:
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex,
Brighton BN1 9RE
http://www.ids.ac.uk/
ids@ids.ac.uk.
01273 606261
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Scottish Participatory Initiatives
Woodbush Studio
Woodbush Brae
Dunbar, EH42 1HB
01368 860 060
info@scottishparticipatoryinitiatives.co.uk
http://www.srds.co.uk/spi/
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Web links:
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Oxfam UKPP website with links to published resources, to organisations using Participatory Appraisal and providing training. www.oxfamgb.org/ukpp/sid
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