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Abstract
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is an approach to facilitating community development whose family of techniques such as Ven diagrams, matrix ranking, and matrix scoring - rely heavily on visualization and diagramming. However, what distinguishes PRA more than any of its techniques is its emphasis on participation. PRA practitioners generally believe that only when participants are in full control - of needs assessment, goal-setting, planning, policy-making, implementation, and evaluation - can a process be considered fully participatory. PRA, which emerged first in the global South, is increasingly being used in developed countries, and it is in this commitment to participation that PRA has the most to offer facilitators practicing in the North. Facilitators using any approach are encouraged to ask themselves reflective questions such as, Are my actions and methods as a facilitator contributing to the ability of the participants to take control?
Key words
rural development, appraisal, community meetings, matrix, community, participatory rural appraisal, rapid rural appraisal, participatory learning and action
Introduction
Because the many methodologies for facilitating group endeavors in scanning, planning, decision making, and team building have been developed in diverse and often unconnected contexts, the opportunities for mutual learning and crossfertilization are great This is particularly true across the regrettable divide that separates many of those practicing in the global South, or so-called "developing countries, "from those in the North. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is an approach to facilitating community development that emerged in developing countries and is as yet little known among facilitators practicing in the North. It is hoped, therefore, that a description of the history, principles, and techniques of the PRA will benefit those interested in group facilitation in any context.
In 1992, Robert Chambers, one the most well-known proponents of PRA, described it as "a family of approaches and methods to enable rural people to share, enhance, and analyse their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan, and to act" (p. 1). While the particular focus on rural settings has for the most part been set aside, the definition is still apt, and even when Chambers gave this definition, he and other practitioners of PRA had already moved beyond mere "appraisal."1 This paper, after outlining an example of a typical PRA process,...