·
Access
to resources.
A series of participatory exercises that allows development
practitioners to collect information and raises awareness among
beneficiaries about the ways in which access to resources varies
according to gender and other important social variables. This
userfriendly tool draws on the everyday experience of participants
and is useful to men, women, trainers, project staff, and field-workers.
·
Analysis
of tasks.
A gender analysis tool that raises community awareness about
the distribution of domestic, market, and community activities
according to gender and familiarizes planners with the degree
of role flexibility that is associated with different tasks.
Such information and awareness is necessary to prepare and execute
development interventions that will benefit both men and women.
·
Focus
group meetings.
Relatively lowcost, semistructured, small group (four to twelve
participants plus a facilitator) consultations used to explore
peoples' attitudes, feelings, or preferences, and to build consensus.
Focus group work is a compromise between participantobservation,
which is less controlled, lengthier, and more indepth, and preset
interviews, which are not likely to attend to participants'
own concerns.
·
Force
field analysis.
A tool similar to one called "Story With a Gap," which
engages people to define and classify goals and to make sustainable
plans by working on thorough "before and after" scenarios.
Participants review the causes of problematic situations, consider
the factors that influence the situation, think about solutions,
and create alternative plans to achieve solutions. The tools
are based on diagrams or pictures, which minimize language and
literacy differences and encourage creative thinking.
·
Health-seeking
behavior.
A culturally sensitive tool for generation of data about health
care and healthrelated activities. It produces qualitative data
about the reasons behind certain practices as well as quantifiable
information about beliefs and practices. This visual tool uses
pictures to minimize language and literacy differences.
·
Logical
Framework or LogFRAME.
A matrix that illustrates a summary of project design, emphasizing
the results that are expected when a project is successfully
completed. These results or outputs are presented in terms of
objectively verifiable indicators. The Logical Framework approach
to project planning, developed under that name by the U.S. Agency
for International Development, has been adapted for use in participatory
methods such as ZOPP (in which the tool is called a project
planning matrix) and TeamUP.
·
Mapping.
A generic term for gathering in pictorial form baseline data
on a variety of indicators. This is an excellent starting point
for participatory work because it gets people involved in creating
a visual output that can be used immediately to bridge verbal
communication gaps and to generate lively discussion. Maps are
useful as verification of secondary source information, as training
and awarenessraising tools, for comparison, and for monitoring
of change. Common types of maps include health maps, institutional
maps (Venn diagrams), and resource maps.
·
Needs
assessment.
A tool that draws out information about people's varied needs,
raises participants' awareness of related issues, and provides
a framework for prioritizing needs. This sort of tool is an
integral part of gender analysis to develop an understanding
of the particular needs of both men and women and to do comparative
analysis.
·
Participant
observation
A fieldwork technique used by anthropologists and sociologists
to collect qualitative and quantitative data that leads to an
indepth understanding of peoples' practices, motivations, and
attitudes. Participant observation entails investigating the
project background, studying the general characteristics of
a beneficiary population, and living for an extended period
among beneficiaries, during which interviews, observations,
and analyses are recorded and discussed.
·
Pocket
charts.
Investigative tools that use pictures as stimuli to encourage
people to assess and analyze a given situation. Through a "voting'
process, participants use the chart to draw attention to the
complex elements of a development issue in an uncomplicated
way. A major advantage of this tool is that it can be put together
with whatever local materials are available.
·
Preference
ranking.
Also called direct matrix ranking, an exercise in which people
identify what they do and do not value about a class of objects
(for example, tree species or cooking fuel types). Ranking allows
participants to understand the reasons for local preferences
and to see how values differ among local groups. Understanding
preferences is critical for choosing appropriate and effective
interventions.
·
Role
playing.
Enables people to creatively remove themselves from their usual
roles and perspectives to allow them to understand choices and
decisions made by other people with other responsibilities.
Ranging from a simple story with only a few characters to an
elaborate street theater production, this tool can be used to
acclimate a research team to a project setting, train trainers,
and encourage community discussions about a particular development
intervention.
·
Seasonal
diagrams or seasonal
calendars.
Show the major changes that affect a household, community, or
region within a year, such as those associated with climate,
crops, labor availability and demand, livestock, prices, and
so on. Such diagrams highlight the times of constraints and
opportunity, which can be critical information for planning
and implementation.
·
Secondary
data review.
Also called desk review, an inexpensive, initial inquiry that
provides necessary contextual background. Sources include academic
theses and dissertations, annual reports, archival materials,
census data, life histories, maps, project documents, and so
on.
·
Semistructured
interviews.
Also called conversational interviews, interviews that
are partially structured by a flexible interview guide with
a limited number of preset questions. This kind of guide ensures
that the interview remains focused on the development issue
at hand while allowing enough conversation so that participants
can introduce and discuss topics that are relevant to them.
These tools are a deliberate departure from survey-type interviews
with lengthy, predetermined questionnaires.
·
Sociocultural
profiles.
Detailed descriptions of the social and cultural dimensions
that in combination with technical, economic, and environmental
dimensions serve as a basis for design and preparation of policy
and project work. Profiles include data about the type of communities,
demographic characteristics, economy and livelihood, land tenure
and natural resource control, social organization, factors affecting
access to power and resources, conflict resolution mechanisms,
and values and perceptions. Together with a participation plan,
the sociocultural profile helps ensure that proposed projects
and policies are culturally and socially appropriate and potentially
sustainable.
·
Surveys.
A sequence of focused, predetermined questions in a fixed order,
often with predetermined, limited options for responses. Surveys
can add value when they are used to identify development problems
or objectives, narrow the focus or clarify the objectives of
a project or policy, plan strategies for implementation, and
monitor or evaluate participation. Among the survey instruments
used in Bank work are firm surveys, sentinel community
surveillance, contingent valuation, and priority
surveys.
·
Tree
diagrams.
Multipurpose, visual tools for narrowing and prioritizing problems,
objectives, or decisions. Information is organized into a treelike
diagram that includes information on the main issue, relevant
factors, and influences and outcomes of these factors. Tree
diagrams are used to guide design and evaluation systems, to
uncover and analyze the underlying causes of a particular problem,
or to rank and measure objectives in relation to one another.
·
Village
meetings.
Meetings with many uses in participatory development, including
information sharing and group consultation, consensus building,
prioritization and sequencing of interventions, and collaborative
monitoring and evaluation. When multiple tools such as resource
mapping, ranking, and focus groups have been used, village meetings
are important venues for launching activities, evaluating
progress, and gaining feedback on analysis.
·
Wealth
ranking.
Also known as wellbeing ranking or vulnerability analysis, a
technique for the rapid collection and analysis of specific
data on social stratification at the community level. This visual
tool minimizes literacy and language differences of participants
as they consider factors such as ownership of or use rights
to productive assets, lifecycle stage of members of the productive
unit, relationship of the productive unit to locally powerful
people, availability of labor, and indebtedness.
·
Workshops.
Structured group meetings at which a variety of key stakeholder
groups, whose activities or influence affect a development issue
or project, share knowledge and work toward a common vision.
With the help of a workshop facilitator, participants undertake
a series of activities designed to help them progress toward
the development objective (consensus building, information sharing,
prioritization of objectives, team building, and so on). In
project as well as policy work, from preplanning to evaluation
stages, stakeholder workshops are used to initiate, establish,
and sustain collaboration.
Source:
World Bank Participation Sourcebook.
