The document discusses various participatory approaches, focusing primarily on Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), Farming System Research-Extension (FSR/E), and Participatory Learning Methods (PALM). RRA emphasizes quick, collaborative data collection with local communities to inform project design and development, while FSR/E connects farmers with researchers for problem-solving and technology adaptation. PALM, developed in India, aims for participatory planning and involves local people as key partners in the development process.

1. ASSIGNMENT
ON
DIFFERNT PARTICIPATORY
APPROACHES
Submitted to :- Submitted by :-
Dr. Nishi Sharma Praveen kumar
M.Sc 1st yr.
(21081)
ICAR-IARI NEW
DELHI

2. CONTENTS
1. RRA - (RAPID RURAL APPRAISAL)
2. FSRE - (FARMING SYSTEM RESEARCH
EXTENSION)
3. PALM - (PARTICIPATORY LEARNING
METHODS)

4. Introduction
 RRA is a social science approach that emerged in the
late 1970s.
 The basic idea of RRA is to rather quickly collect,
analyse and evaluate information on rural conditions
and local knowledge.
 This information is generated in close co-operation with
the local population in rural areas.
 One of the key principles of RRA is the visualisation of
questions and results by using locally comprehensible
symbols.

5.  In most of the cases RRA is carried out by a small team
of researchers or trained professionals in one to three
days in a kind of workshop.
 The role of the local population in RRA is to provide
relevant local knowledge for research purposes and
development planning.
 The RRA team manages the process and maintains the
power to decide on how to utilise this information.
 This information can then be used in a variety of ways
including project design, improvement of an ongoing
project, revision of national policies, etc.

6. Definition:-
RRA is more commonly described as a systematic but semi-structured activity
out in the field by a multidisciplinary team and is designed to obtain new
information and to formulate new hypotheses about rural life.
OR
An intensive, systematic, but semi-structured mutual learning experience,
carried out in a community by an interdisciplinary team that includes
community members for the efficient acquisition and analysis of data on
community conditions to produce useful and reliable information in a timely
manner.

7. THE PRINCIPLES OF RAPID RURAL APPRAISALS
The following are the principles of RRA.
1. Optimising trade-offs:- relating the costs of learning to the useful truth of
information, having tradeoffs between quantity, relevance, accuracy and
timeliness of the information acquired, as well as its actual use.
2. Offsetting biases:- through introspection, it is necessary to identify
cognitive biases and deliberately offset those biases. The
recommendations are: to be relaxed and not rushed; listening not lecturing;
probing instead of passing onto the next topic; being unimposing instead of
imposing; and seeking out the poorer people and what concerns them.
3. Triangulating:- using more than one technique/source of information to
cross-check answers, that is comparing and complementing information
from different sources or gathered in different ways. It also involves having
team - multidisciplinary - members with the ability to approach the same
piece of information or the same question from different perspectives.
.

8. 4. Learning from and with the rural people:- this means learning directly, on-
site, and face-to-face, gaining from indigenous physical, technical, and
social knowledge. Farmers' perceptions and understanding of resource
situations and problems are important to learn and comprehend because
solutions must be viable and acceptable in the local context, and because
local inhabitants possess extensive knowledge about their resource setting.
5. Learning rapidly and progressively :- this means the process of learning
with conscious exploration, flexible use of methods, opportunism,
improvisation, iteration, and cross-checking, not following a blueprint
programme but adapting through the learning process. However, this could
sound again as a non-systematic way of carrying out research.
[ A fundamental principle is the making of contact with the rural population in
a learning process. This aspect must be one of the focal points ]

9. TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES USED IN RRA
Introduction
 There are many different ways to get information in RRA and PRA.
 This variety of techniques is sometimes called the RRA/PRA “Toolkit.”
 While there are a certain number of core techniques that are regularly used
by most practitioners, the list continues to expand as people devise their
own ways to get information in a more participatory and more interesting
fashion.
Adapting the Tools
 Keep in mind that the tools as they are presented here are generic; that is,
they can be applied to any subject.
 Realistically, each of these tools will have to be adapted to the
circumstances in which you will be using them.
 It is important to remember when using any of these techniques that the
tools are not the end product.
 That is, the purpose is not to end up with a pretty map or a well drawn
Venn diagram.
 The purpose is to obtain information using these techniques.

10. THE TECHNIQUES OF RRA INCLUDE:
 In its early days, RRA seemed little more than organized common sense.
During the 1980s, however, creative ingenuity was applied and more
methods invented. A summary listing can indicate some of the types of
methods known, without covering all:
• secondary data review
• direct observation, including wandering around
• DIY (doing-it-yourself), taking part in activities
• key informants
• semi-structured interviews
• group interviews
• chains (sequences) of interviews
• key indicators
• key probes
• workshops and brainstorming
• transects and group walks
• mapping
• aerial photographs
• diagrams
• ranking and scoring
• quick quantification
• stories, portraits and case studies
• team management and interactions
• short, simple questionnaires, late in the RRA process
• rapid report writing in the field

11. FLOW OF ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD DURING AN
RRA STUDY
Site Selection
Orientation to RRA
Training
Information Gathering
Planning / CAP
More Information gathering
Revise the Community Action Plan
Implementing

12. Analysis and Report Writing (RRA)
i. Analyzing data
 The analysis should be kept simple; it should be related to
the purpose and scope of the study.
 If complex data are to be used, then every effort should be
made to present the findings in non-technical language.
 Data and information should be arranged according to
category, issue, topic, sub-topic or question.
ii. The report should consist of the following.
 The problem statement (including the conceptual
framework)
 Purpose and scope
 Methodology
 Data and findings
 Implications of findings
 Summary
 Reference and appendices

13. STRENGTHS OF RRA
1. Visual sharing , diagrams, maps or quantification are presented physically
by rural people in a manner they readily understand, since they have
created it, and that can be cross checked and amended. Successive
approximation is thus built into the process.
2. Ranking and scoring, rather than measuring : Of course, measurements and
estimates can be and are sought. But especially for sensitive information like
income or wealth, people are often willing to present relative values when
they would conceal or distort absolute values.
 In seasonal analysis, for example, people readily use seeds or other
counters to show relative amounts of income and expenditure by month.
 Similarly, with changes and trends over time, relative values can be
given. Ranking items by people's own criteria, and scoring different items
out of ten, five or three, have also proved feasible and popular.

14. 3. Combinations and sequences of methods have proved powerful and
practical.
 Participatory mapping and modelling, where villagers make their
own map or model on the ground or on paper, leads easily and
naturally to other activities, such as discussing routes for walking
transects in which they are guides, and to household listings and
wealth ranking, to identifying numbers and types of people in a
community, and to marking in other details.
4. The approach and methods are popular and empowering.
 Questionnaires are often a bore for all concerned.
 PRA methods are often enjoyed. We have had to learn not to
interview and not to interrupt when people are being creative with a
map or model, when they are thinking, when they are reflecting on
estimates.
 People are no longer "respondents." They are players, performers,
presenters, and own their play, performance and presentation. And
the word "fun" comes into the development vocabulary.

15. USES OF RRA
I. Pre-project
RRAs are particularly useful in gathering information that will help agencies
to orient their programs. By conducting several RRAs in an area that is new
to the agency, they will get a sense of the range of issues that need to be
addressed, and be better informed on the context (social, economic,
political, environmental, etc.) in which the projects will intervene.
II. Project Design
RRAs are essential in the design phase to ensuring that the project is
appropriate to the realities in the area where it will be working. There is
ample experience now to suggest that standardized, off the shelf projects
are of limited effectiveness. The more that projects can be customized to the
peculiar circumstances where they will intervene, the greater their chance of
success.
for example :- CRS/Kenya has used RRA to plan its food security
interventions.
III. Early project intervention
RRAs early in the project can help the project further refine its objectives
and activities. If RRAs have not been done in the project design phase,
these studies will be essential to correcting any design flaws. In some cases,
these RRAs will logically lead into PRAs that draw the communities more
deeply into the planning process. Several CRS health projects have or are
planning to use RRA to refine their development of health education

16. IV. Mid-project
As the project gets underway , the staff may choose a select number of
communities in which to do regular RRA studies to monitor implementation,
and to assess the effectiveness of the approach.
This will enable corrections to be made as problems are identified. RRA is
also a very useful method to use in mid-term evaluations of project
activities in selected sites.
CRS/The Gambia used some RRA tools for a mid-term review of its
Sesame Growers Association project with its counterpart, GAFNA, in order
to find ways that the project might be improved during the second phase of
its implementation.
V. End of project
The end of project evaluation will almost certainly wish to include an RRA
assessment of strengths and weaknesses.
This evaluation will look at who was affected by the project and the impact
on those who participated...as well as those who did not.
A CRS project in Senegal used RRA techniques to evaluate the impact of
its seed cereal banks.

18. FSR/E
Farming is viewed as a system including interacting component of land
, soil, water, crops, livestock and other resources with the family at
the centre , managing agriculture and allied activities
 Farming system approach envisaged generation of appropriate and
location specific technology through farmers participation and also
farmer-scientist integration to improve income and employment
potential of small resource poor farmer through concurrent attention
to crops, animal rearing, fishery, forestry, sericulture etc.
 The FSR approach is to connect the farmer with the researcher.
 On –farm research is a vital function of FSR/E.
It is a whole-farm systems approach which recognises that
inappropriate technologies and policies that are incompatible with
local conditions (biophysical, social and economic) have been major
barriers to farmers adopting technologies and changing farm
practices.

19. Some of the essential features of FSR/E are as follows,
FSR/E is a farmer based problem solving, comprehensive,
interdisciplinary, complementary, interactive, dynamic and
responsible approach to society.
1. Farmer based : FSR/E implies its interest in farmers situation
and perception through its close contact, using observation,
discussion,trial etc. The farmers reaction are taken into
account at every step.
2. Problem solving : it categories farmers on homogenous
characteristics and investigates problems .
3. Comprehensive : it does not work on specialised area as
agronomy , plant protection but takes into consideration total
setting in which farm operates.

20. 4. Interdisciplinary : it lays greater emphasis on
interdisciplinary cooperation among the biological and social
scientist .
5. Complementary : it supports on the research, production
and extension work of many other related disciplines .
6. Interactive : it facilitates continuous learning and changes
due to interaction and quick work .
7. Dynamic : it is not only a single , well planned , carefully
thought out master plan but also a gradual process that
continually re-evaluates research result s in view of farmers
conditions.
8. Responsible to society : it considers not only farming
problems but also the broader interest of the society .

21. ACTIVITIES INVOLVED IN FSR/E
FSR is a process which involves a set of interrelated activities ,
which according to Shaneret.al (1982) are as follows
1. Target and research area selection
2. Identification of research problem
3. Planning and designing of on-farm research
4. Farmer participatory on-farm research and its analysis
5. Extension of research results.

22. STEPS INVOLVED IN FSR/E
1) Diagnosis :-
The major objectives at this stage are to describe and
understand the
current production system, to identify and analyse the key farmer
problems
2) Planning and design stage :-
Planning begins with the analysis of the priority
problems identified.
3) Experimentation or testing stage :-
This deals with the actual implementation and
management of trials.
4) Evaluation :-
Experimental results are assessed using formal statistical,
agronomic and socio-economic criteria as well as being
reviewed to assure that the conclusions are compatible with
farmers concern and the characteristics of the FS.
5) Recommendations and wider dissemination or extension :-
The ultimate objective of agricultural and natural resources
research is to develop suitable recommendations for the
target group of farmers.

24. Participatory Learning Methods (PALM)
 This approach developed by MYRADA in Bangalore, India
around 1989 (a nongovernmental organization that has
been active in rural development since 1968 in some
2000 villages in Southern India) .
 Areas in which it has been successfully applied are as
follows :
1) participatory planning of natural resource development
2) participatory project management
3) integrated rural development programs dealing with
health care, poverty alleviation and the situation of
women and children; rural credit management;
customs and coping with local conflicts;
4) participatory impact monitoring and assessment of
development programs.

25. Special features
 PALM uses the key RRA concepts, but emphasizes
participation by village residents and the function of
the externals as catalysts and partners for self-
determined development.
 The aim of PALM is to go beyond “appraisal” and
arrive at participatory analysis and a common
understanding of rural conditions.
 The focus is on learning from and with local people.
In order to avoid stimulating false expectations.

26. Tools/techniques
1. Geographical and historical transects,
2. Participatory mapping;
3. Seasonality diagramming,
4. Ranking and scoring,
5. other RRA/PRA techniques
 Assessment
With 25-30 externals, the PALM village studies involve a
relatively large team.
In this form, PLAM is tailored to conditions in India.
The number of aspects dealt with and the depth of the studies,
which are conducted within a short space of time, mean that
the externals must be familiar with local conditions and socio-
cultural structures