CARE – East and Central Africa Regional Capacity Building on Situational Analysis:
Annex III: Compendium of Methods
Annex 3: Compendium of Methods
Participatory Methodologies (Part I) ............................................................................. 1
Guidelines for Mapping .............................................................................................. 1
Guidelines for Histories .............................................................................................. 8
Guidelines for Well-Being Analysis ......................................................................... 11
Participatory Methodologies (Part II) .......................................................................... 15
Participatory Methodologies (Part I)1
During the first half of the capacity building initiative, the program covered the basic
principles of good facilitation, and key participatory methods, such as mapping, histories,
and well-being analysis. It is important for the staff who participated in this exercise to
practice the methods they learned and to apply the various techniques that were
discussed. This paper is a guideline that covers they key exercises that were covered
during the capacity building process.
Participatory methods are essentially about engaging local people in ways that enable
them to discuss and analyze the various dimensions of their lives, with an emphasis of
processes of marginalization, discrimination and poverty. Ultimately, the exercises that
have been conducted in a community / locality should be presented to the community
and used to explore social actions that can address marginalization and poverty.
Participatory exercises can explore social structures and dynamics, political processes,
household livelihood strategies. In time, the various analyses will enable the participatory
researchers (in our case CARE staff and Partners) to work with local people to come up
with plans and strategies to address the inequalities and forms of marginalization that
have been analyzed, rather than imposing top down solutions. To do so, however,
requires that the staff practice the methodologies and become good at engaging people
in such exercises by improving their facilitation and analysis skills.
Guidelines for Mapping
A. The Lowest Administrative Unit
Purpose of the Village Resource Map
Mapping the lowest unit of local government (in Tanzania – a village) is a fundamental
step in initiating a project / program’s activity in a given locality. This is because the
creation of a ‘village resource map’ allows the team that will work in the area to begin the
process of uncovering power relations by locating concrete expressions of power, i.e.
resources and wealth. Such a map captures the physical location of resources: schools
(public, private, religious), paved and unpaved roads, water sources: shallow wells, deep
1
Brigitta Bode, Social Development Consultant, June 2010
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tube wells, electricity lines, and so on, as well as elected and informal powerful actors.
The mapping process serves multiple purposes: a) to introduce and explain the study /
or intervention to locally elected representatives, and to seek their assistance, support
and interest in the study; b) to obtain basic statistics: population of the administrative
unit, the ratio of ethnic / tribal and religious groups, etc. c) to efficiently map resources
and key actors with those who have a ‘grounded understanding’ of each geographic
area within the administrative unit; and d) to observe the interactions between the
chairperson and elected members to gain a sense of the political and social dynamics
within the council. Most importantly, this map can be used later on to work with local
government (village, sub-district, district) to consider the allocation (and needs) of
resources to the poorest communities.
The Process of Creating a Village Resource Map
1. Preparations for the Village Resource Map
Contact the locally elected council of the village in question and ask them if they could
attend a meeting (about 2 – 3 hours) in which you intend to introduce your work in the
locality and engage them in a mapping exercise to better understand the locality. Ask
where would be the best place for all elected members and various committee members
to meet and explore where would be a good place to conduct the mapping. This exercise
requires a large space (best to do this outside, if it is not raining). It would be good to
ask, if any other organization has ever created a map of this administrative unit, and if
so, to request a copy. See what is on this map and what may need to be added and also
check when the map was made to see if it is outdated.
For this exercise, the facilitating team should consist of at least 4 members, and more
may be needed depending on the number of units (hamlets – in Tanzania) within the
village. The facilitating team should decide who will be the main facilitator (introducing
the organization, their work and what is planned for the day), who will help with writing
cards, taking notes, facilitate groups, handle gate-keepers and children, etc. The
materials required for this exercise are idea cards and plenty of markers. If possible, the
field team should locate a map of the sub-district that indicates the outline of the village
and key roads, rivers, etc. On the day of the exercise, the facilitators should arrive early.
Ask the participants who are early to assist you in preparing the place – seating
arrangements, clearing any leaves or debris from the floor, etc.
2. The Facilitation Process of Mapping
Once most (if not all) participants have arrived, the main facilitator
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greets all the participants, introduce her/himself and her/his team, and provides
space for the participants to introduce each other to the facilitators; the main
facilitator then explains the objective of the session: the purpose is map the
physical and human resources within the village. A copy of the map should be
provided to the chairman of the council, after the work has been processed. It is
important to be very clear in the beginning that CARE and its Partner NGOs are
not here to provide relief or hands-out, but that the findings of this exercise will
help the organization to better structure its activities and development process. It
is important not to mention that this map will be used to identify the poorest
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communities, as this may affect the engagement of the participants and the
accuracy of the map;
the participants are then asked to group themselves based on the sub-units in
the village (generally, the lowest administrative governmental unit consists of the
several sub-units – in Tanzania these are hamlets – from which representatives
are elected) and form groups that will later on work independently on various
sections of the map;
once the participants are organized, the facilitator could use the map of the subdistrict level to draw the shape of the village onto the ground, with the assistance
of participants. If there is no such map, ask if some of the participants could use
sticks to draw an outline of the village on the ground (use chalk if indoors) and
put the main roads, rivers, and the various sub-units, i.e. hamlets. The size of this
outline should be 6-8 meters, so that there is plenty of space of all participants to
work in the map and map their respective localities;
once the outline has been drawn and key land marks have been identified, so
that people can orient themselves, the main facilitator should ask the participants
if they agree with the outline, physical features, and hamlet boundaries that have
been indicated;
after everyone is in agreement, the groups, consisting of the elected council
members each representing their respective constituencies (hamlets), now begin
to work. Initially, they brainstorm what resources are in their respective hamlets:
schools, health facilities, water sources, electricity, churches / mosques, markets,
and NGO presence (or former NGO presence), and so on and write these on
idea cards. Finally, each group is asked to brainstorm about the former and
presently elected representatives and chairmen that have been elected and key
informal leaders (heads of clans / tribes, largest landowners or businessmen,
etc.) and note these on idea cards.
These physical and human resources are then placed into the large map for
which the boundaries have already been drawn. Ideally, they should be placed in
the appropriate location, so that the map is accurate. However, it is possible that
time runs out and this is not possible. In this case, the idea cards with the
resources are randomly placed into the sub-units (hamlets);
once all the resources have been placed on the map, all participants return back
to their seats and sub-unit by sub-unit, one person from each sub-unit reads
each idea card to all participants to make sure that all agree with the physical
and human resources that have been put. Through this process, resources or
power holders that have been missed may be identified. It is also possible that
various sub-units disagree about the location of key resources. In this case, the
main facilitator should try to explore the reasons for the disagreement and find a
way to obtain consensus;
the facilitating team member, who has been assigned to copy the map on paper
is copying the map during the facilitation process;
finally, the participants are thanked for their contribution and reminded that a
copy of the map will be provided to them.
Processing and Analyzing the Information
Upon return to the office, the team should use the copy of the map that has been made
by one of the team members and create a large poster map that includes a legend. It is
important to be logical and consistent in terms of the symbols being used for the legend,
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so that the reader can easily understand each symbol and interpret the map. Finally, the
team should note the date the map was created and the names of the team members
onto the map, so that those using the map can contact them should any questions arise.
Be sure to make an extra copy of the map for the local council.
Once the map has been created, look for trends. Asking the following questions will be
useful to do this: What do the physical and human resources patterns that have been
mapped tell about concentration of power in this locality? Are there any powerful actors
in the locality that have influence beyond the locality mapped? (e.g. a MP or former MP,
a district council member or former council member, etc.) If so, does his /her community
have more resources then others? Which communities (hamlets) have access to water/
school/ roads / etc. and which do not? Does the map indicate a correlation between
infrastructure and formal / informal leaders? Are there minority groups (these could be
ethnic groups, in-migrants, etc) in certain communities and does the map indicate a
relationship between ethnicity and access to resources?
These questions will undoubtedly point to patterns that indicate certain dynamics that the
research wants to explore in the future. It is likely that the map will illustrate clearly
which communities have been left out of the development process or are underrepresented in the local council, indicating forms of marginalization, which should be
further explored. In this way, the resource and power map will point to patterns,
dynamics and raise additional questions that need to be explored.
Things to Consider
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the mapping process allows the facilitators to gain a sense of the dynamics
amongst the council members and between the council members and the
chairman; at the same time, there may be incidence where the chairman and
certain members dominate the process and influence the drawing of boundaries.
It is important to take note of who dominates and who supports whom, but to try
to involve all participants in the process. Dividing people into groups to let them
work on their constituencies is a key method to ensure participation from each
constituency;
the mapping process should not be overall concerned with accuracy of main
boundaries, a part of the mapping that can be difficult, but focus more on the
accuracy of the physical and human resources that have been put;
it is important to consider this map ‘ a working document’ that needs to be
verified by physically visiting each constituency and discussing its content with
local residents to ensure to make any changes, if needed.
Potential Uses of the Map
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mapping the locality with locally elected officials is an important means to
introduce a study or project / program activity;
the map indicates power centers and areas that have are politically / socially
marginalized or are remote (in terms of access to roads) and can be used to
strategize which geographic areas in the NGO’s working area need to be focused
on;
the map is useful to identify which areas in a locality are likely to attract NGO
activities and which areas are generally left out;
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the map helps to see where CARE’s or its PNGO’s activities are located in
relation to power centers;
mapping is a simple way to create a visual of unequal power relations that can
then be explored in more detail through other exercises;
the map can be used to identify the poorest areas (based on lack of resources,
powerful persons, remoteness, lack NGO presence, and so on);
the map can be used as an advocacy tool to ‘lobby’ for resources from the local
government.
B. Mapping a Community – Social Map
Purpose of the Social Map
Mapping a community allows us to visually capture the residential patterns and the
presence and allocation of resources (public lands, schools, mosques, churches, etc.) in
relation to such patterns. In combination, with the well-being analysis (see below), it
allows the researcher to see if there is a relation between class and neighborhood;
further, a social map highlights which neighborhoods have greater access to resources
(physical and human) and which have less. Because the process includes the mapping
of individual households, it becomes easy to superimpose important criteria, such as
well-being criteria (rich, middle, poor), membership in VSL groups, or other NGO
activities, latrines, and so on, providing staff with a visual of who is generally in (or left
out) of the development process. The social map is also an important exercise to work
with local people to collect the names of all households, which can be used for future
exercises (see well-being analysis).
The Process of Creating a Social Map
1. Preparations for the Social Map
Visit the community you wish to map and do a transect walk, asking someone who
resides there to come along with you. Visit all neighborhoods to find out how many
neighborhoods there are, explore roughly how many households reside in each
neighborhood (the Village Map will have given some idea of the total number of
households), and take note of the types of resources that you see. During the transect
walk, you could ask people, when is a good time for them to participate in a 2-3 hour
session and which would be a good place (large space) for all to meet. It is important to
find a place that all people are comfortable at and willing to come to and let people know
that you would like to collectively create a map of their community. Having established a
time and place, return to each neighborhood and let people know when and where the
meeting will be held. During the initial meeting (transect walk) it would be good to ask, if
any other organization has ever created a map of this hamlet, and if so, to request a
copy. See what is on this map and what needs to be added and also check when the
map was made to see if it is outdated.
Depending on the particular objective of the social map – understanding the spatial
patterns of a community, exploring NGO membership, VSLN membership, latrine
coverage, etc. – the facilitating team should decide prior to visiting the community what
they are going to map besides the key resources and households.
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For this exercise, the facilitating team should consist of at least 4 members, and more
may be needed depending on the number of households in the hamlet. The facilitating
team should decide who will be the main facilitator (introducing the organization, their
work, what is planned for the day, and facilitating the main session), who will help with
writing cards, taking notes, facilitate groups, handle gate-keepers and children, etc. The
materials required for this exercise are idea cards and plenty of markers. On the day of
the exercise, the facilitators should arrive early. Ask the participants who are early to
assist you in preparing the place – seating arrangements, clearing any leaves or debris
from the floor, etc.
2. The Facilitation Process of the Social Map
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Once most (if not all) participants have arrived, the main facilitator greets all the
participants, introduce her/himself and her/his team, and provides space for the
participants to introduce each other to the facilitators; the main facilitator then
explains the objective of the session: the purpose of the sessions is to create a
map that illustrates the residential patterns of the community, individual
households (defined as a ‘separate kitchen’), the physical resources and human
resources (elected representatives, informal leaders, teachers, doctors, etc.). A
copy of the map should be provided to local leaders (the elected representative),
after the work has been processed. The facilitator needs to check that people are
able to give 2-3 hours of their time. It is important to be very clear in the
beginning that CARE and its Partner NGOs are not here to provide relief or
hands-out, but that the findings of this exercise will help the organization to better
structure its activities and development process.
The session then proceeds with the main facilitator asking the participants to
group themselves by ‘neighborhood’ and remain in these groups. The facilitator
then asks people to step forward and draw the external boundaries of the
community on the ground (as with the village map, this map should be about 6-8
meters in size). Once all have agreed on the external boundaries, participants
are asked to draw the internal boundaries and as before, the facilitator ensures
that there is agreement.
People then go back into the ‘neighborhood’ groups and brainstorm about the
resources that need to be mapped and work with individual facilitators to create a
list of households in their neighborhood (preferably this list should not only
include the head of household, usually a man, but also the name of the wife. If
you are working in a polygamous society, you might want to consider
ascertaining if there are polygamous households and obtain the names of the
wives, in order to map their homesteads as well. The participants should then
create cards with the physical and human resources.
Once the individual names have been recorded and the physical (schools,
mosques/ churches, water points, etc) and human resources have been
recorded, each group works together to enter the relevant information on the
map. Leave them to do this by themselves as far as possible. Try to encourage
people to interact among themselves as much as possible and to involve all
participants. Only intervene when they have run out of ideas. It may only be
possible for 4-5 people to participate actively in this process, but others may be
happy to sit and watch, offering comments. If it seems that there is excessive
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domination by a few people, try to bring others in. If people arrive late and join
the group take them to one side and explain what is going on.
When the map is completed, ask people to stand around it and ask someone
from each team to explain what has been mapped. Others who were not in the
group, as well as the facilitators, may want to ask questions at this point.
the facilitating team member, who has been assigned to copy the map on paper
is copying the map, during the facilitation process;
finally, the participants are thanked for their contribution and reminded that a
copy of the map will be provided to them.
Processing and Analyzing the Information
Upon return to the office, the team should use the copy of the map that has been made
by one of the team members and create a large poster map that includes a legend. It is
important to be logical and consistent in terms of the symbols being used. Finally, the
team should note the date the map was created and the names of the team members
onto the map, so that those using the map can contact them should any questions arise.
Be sure to make an extra copy of the map for the community.
As with the Resource and Power Map, analysis should explore key questions: What are
the resource (physical and human) patterns that have been mapped? Which
neighborhoods have less resources and which have more? Is there a correlation
between human resources (powerful persons) and apparent resource allocation? Can
you identify well-off neighborhoods and the poor ones? What is different about these? Is
there an core part (the oldest part of the community)? Who lives there? Who are the
people who live at the margins? Are the residential patterns different in the areas that
are better off, as compared to those that are not? If you have done more than one social
map, you can compare the maps of different communities, those that are better off, with
more resources and a larger number of powerful persons. What does it tell you about
the larger locality? The point is to ‘interrogate’ the information that has been mapped.
Things to Consider
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the mapping process allows the facilitators to gain a sense of the dynamics within
the community; at the same time, there may be incidence where people disagree
and / or where certain persons dominate the process and influence the drawing
of boundaries or location of resources. Dividing people into groups to let them
work on their neighborhood is a key method to ensure participation from each
part of the community and this will also ensure greater accuracy;
the mapping process should not be overall concerned with accuracy of main
boundaries, a part of the mapping that can be difficult, but focus more on the
accuracy of the physical and human resources that have been put;
it is important to consider this map ‘a working document’ on to which other
aspects can be mapped in the future;
It is possible to create two maps of a community: a resource map and a social
map, if you feel that doing both at once is too time consuming.
Potential Uses of the Map
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Creating a social map with the a large number of people from the community is a
useful way to introduce a study/ project / program, meet with people and begin
the process of collective work. Mapping is a relatively easy activity and unlike
other exercises (such as well-being analysis) is fairly neutral;
Just as the resource map of the administrative unit, a resource / social map of
the hamlet / community can point to power centers and areas that have are
politically / socially marginalized or are left out from the development process and
this information can be used to strategize which areas in the community need to
be focused on;
the map is useful to identify which households in a community are likely to attract
NGO activities and which areas are generally left out;
the map helps to see where CARE’s or its PNGO’s activities are located in
relation to power centers and classes (if the well-being that should be done later
is superimposed on the social map);
mapping is a simple way to create a visual of unequal power relations that can
then be explored in more detail through other exercises;
the social map can be used by the community to negotiate for resources in the
future.
Guidelines for Histories
Purpose of Hamlet Histories
The history of a community helps us and the community to collectively understand past
trends and adjust to likely future realities. For instance, understanding critical past
events (e.g. elections, a major infrastructural development (a market, a road, etc) helps
to position oneself to take advantage of key future opportunities. Equally important,
working with people to construct their own histories aids their self-realization process
and combats fatalism. Encouraging them to share their history with others lends it
validity. Understanding past mistakes helps us to avoid repeating the same mistakes in
the future. In other words, the purpose is two-fold in that it enables the community to
contemplate and think about the past, and it helps us as development workers to know
the various developments, hardships, political processes, environmental disasters that a
community has experienced.
Some famous ‘sayings’ about history:
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Our history is given but we make our future
Today is tomorrow’s history
History is written by the winners
The main lesson to be learned from history is that we do not learn from history
The Process of Creating a Hamlet History
1. Preparations for the Hamlet History
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Visit the community and ask to arrange a meeting with elders from the hamlet, letting
them know that you would like to sit down and work with them to construct a history of
the their community. The session will take about 2 to 2.5 hours and should be held in a
place that is convenient for all to attend and where you will not be disturbed. It is best to
try to arrange one meeting with elderly men and one with elderly women. Experience
has shown that histories recorded by men look quite different from those of women. For
the sessions itself you will require idea cards and markers. There should be two
facilitators – one person that is conducting the session and one that is recording the
information on cards (if people can record it themselves, that is best) and taking notes.
2. The Facilitation Process of a History
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Once most (if not all) participants have arrived, the main facilitator greets all the
participants, introduces her/himself and her/his team, and provides space for the
participants to introduce each other to the facilitators; the main facilitator then
explains the objective of the session: the purpose of the sessions is to create a
history of the community. A copy of the history should be provided to local
leaders (the elected representative), after the work has been processed. Be sure
that people are seated comfortably and that all can participate. The facilitator
needs to check that people are able to give 2-3 hours of their time;
At this point, the facilitator needs to decide whether to proceed thematically or by
period. A thematic approach would start by recording key events (a drought, a
flood, an outbreak of disease, a conflict, a key resource (such as a road), etc)
and then working with these to build up a matrix. A period based approach
(colonial, Nyerere, villagization, post-Nyerere and so on) works by establishing
key periods and working through key themes within each period’
If you follow a period based approach, which tends to be easier for facilitators
until they have learnt how to do histories, then ask the participants to construct a
time line beginning with when the community was founded. Write each time on a
separate card and lay these out from top to bottom. Once the time line has been
constructed, be sure to ask someone who is literate to read it back to the
participants and make sure that there is agreement with what is there;
Ask the participants to discuss some key events that took place in the first period.
Let them know that perhaps they were not alive in this period, but you would still
like to know what is the knowledge (oral history) about the beginnings of the
community. Who settled here first? Where did they come from? And Why did
they come here or why did they leave their earlier place, etc.? Ask people to think
about what has happening at that time in terms of livelihoods, infrastructure,
environment, politics, and so on and group the events, allowing your assistant to
write thematic cards such as politics, livelihoods, infrastructure, environment,
development, crisis, etc. and laying these cards out on top, so that you are
creating a matrix;
Once a period is completed move to the next period and ask about events
related to the themes and record these. Be sure to discuss each event and
explore the relation to other themes. For instance, if a road was build, explore
this road in relation to politics (why was it build at this time when this government
was in power or was it linked to local government – this could lead you to create
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a new category – local government). How did this road impact livelihoods,
access to medical facilities schools and so on. It is important that this discussion
is captured in the notes, so that when the notes are written up, they provide
depth to the matrix. It is likely that new themes emerge as you move through the
periods, add these. Later, when you finish all periods, you will go back and
check what happened in relation to these themes in the earlier periods;
For each period, be sure to see if there are any gaps in the individual categories
and try to fill them, by asking a literate person in the group to read the cards and
review them. You can also ask them to review the cards themselves, if they feel
comfortable;
Once you have completed the matrix, go through it once more, probing about key
events, exploring gaps and connections within and between columns, asking
about relationships, and generally trying to add ‘flesh to the skeleton’;
Beware that certain subjects may be sensitive and only probe where it seems
appropriate;
Add new cards as necessary, adjusting the position of those already there to
preserve chronological order within and between columns;
Finally, thank people for their participation and copy the matrix with a summary of
the main points onto a chart; and / or number the cards and organize them so
that you can reconstruct the matrix once you are in the office.
Processing the Information
If you have not done so in the field, copy the matrix with a summary of the main points
onto a chart. This is not easy but you will get better at it with practice, and with the
experience of seeing how people have reacted to your earlier presentations. It is best to
present this to others and discuss. Don’t worry if you don’t have the whole picture.
Summarizing helps to identify gaps, and sharing ideas with others helps to move
understanding forward more rapidly than if we work alone.
Things to Consider
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It may be difficult to get people started initially. Don’t worry about this and try to
find a period that people are comfortable with and return to the more difficult
periods later when people are clear on what you are doing;
Be sure to discuss one period at a time, moving through all the columns first,
before moving onto another period. This will allow you to discuss the
connections between various themes within one period and explore this period in
depth;
Make sure you stick to one facilitator facilitating the process and not letting all
members of your team ask lots of questions. This becomes confusing. If one of
the co-facilitators has a question, s/he should bring this to the attention of the
main facilitator who will then incorporate that question or point at the appropriate
moment;
Make sure that the participant talk amongst each other and discuss their history
together;
Do not speak to only 1 or 2 persons who seem to participate nicely, but try to
include all others;
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Potential Uses of a Hamlet History
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Understanding how national policies work through local power structures to
create immediate realities;
Identifying who is powerful, how the powerful are linked to each other; and how
their power has operated helps to form ideas about the deal with them in future
and provides an entry point to explore issues of justice, moral economy and
gender relations;
Knowing where people have come from helps us to understand how they relate
to each other and how they might relate in future;
Can be used as an advocacy tool with local government to ‘lobby’ for resources.
Guidelines for Well-Being Analysis
Purpose of the Well Being Analysis:
Well-being analysis is fundamental to understand the community, its level of poverty,
how different people experience poverty and marginalization. Well-being analysis is an
important participatory method that captures people’s perceptions of poverty and
identifies different classes and interest groups with whom problems and desired
activities can be explored. The well-being analysis outlined here is ‘subjective’, with
each community defining its own criteria.2 However, the analysis outlined here, will allow
the projects to use the exercise to identify its ‘impact’ population from the bottom two or
three categories of households.
The Process of the Well Being Analysis:
1. Preparations for the Well Being Analysis:
The exercise requires that the facilitators (at least 3-4 staff are required) visit the
community more than once and in one of the first visits the facilitators should work with
the community to create a social map this will allow them to
a) gain a sense of the number of neighborhoods (e.g. northern hamlet, southern
hamlet, etc.),
b) generate a list of the households and thereby find out the number of households
in the community,
2
In some communities there may be very wealthy households (e.g. land owners with large land holdings and
businesses; whilst in others, the richest families own only a few acres.
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c) identify a suitable place in which all residents are comfortable (a neutral place,
e.g. not in front of an elites’ house), including the poorest and most vulnerable,
for example single, widowed, divorced, abandoned women, old men, etc;
d) find out which day and at which time most people are free and available,
e) and inform as many households as possible when and where the meeting will be
held.
On the day of the exercise, the facilitators should arrive early and bring large strong
paper, flipchart, idea cards, scissors, glue, and markers.3 The list of households that has
been created during the social map should have been transferred onto idea cards, and
these should be taken to the community, as they will be used in the Well Being Analysis.
The facilitators should then walk through each of the hamlet’s neighborhood and call
people for the planned meeting at the re-arranged location. If the community is small –
25 hh to 50 hh – then a large percentage of households (60-80 percent) can be present;
if the community is large – 50 hh – 120 hh – then the percentage of households will be
smaller. Most importantly, there must be several people from several households of
each of the hamlet’s neighborhood! It is also important to make sure that the people from
each of the neighborhoods represent a cross section of the various classes. The latter is
to avoid that only rich and middle people are representing their section of the
community.
2. Facilitation Process in the Community:
Step 1 – Introduction and Objective
The facilitators4
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greet all the participants, introduce themselves and provide space for the
community residents to introduce each other to the facilitators;
explain the objective of the session: the purpose is to understand the economic
and social condition of the residents of the community. It is important to be very
clear in the beginning that CARE and its Partner NGOs are not here to make a
list to provide relief or hands-out, but that the findings of this exercise will help the
organization to involve the poorest households in its activities and development
process;
ask people how they identify the various neighborhoods/ sections in their
community (e.g. north, south, east, west or old hamlet, new hamlet, etc) and ask
people to organize themselves based on these neighborhoods; (this will help the
facilitators identify which neighborhoods are represented/ under-represented or
not represented – if a neighborhood is not represented then it is important to
identify people from this neighborhood and ask them to participate. This will
ensure greater accuracy of the well-being analysis).
ensure that everyone is comfortably seated and able to participate
Each pair of facilitators should carry “PRA” materials to facilitate various exercises in the communities.
A Well-Being Analysis is a complicated exercise and requires 3-4 people. The facilitating team should decide who
facilitates and who helps to organize the information, so that all participants can clearly see what is being constructed.
There should be 1 facilitator to deal with gate-keepers and 1 to engage the children.
3
4
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Step 2 – Establishing Well-Being Categories
The ‘main’ facilitator
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begins the session by asking the people present, the following question ‘are we
all the same?, in terms of how we live ?, how much land we own ?, how we
farm?, how much livestock we own?, what we do for work ?, what we eat ?, what
we wear ? education of our children?, etc.’; This will provide people with an idea
of what you are trying to get at and will enable them to brainstorm about the
types of differences that exist between people / households
provide the participants with pen and cards and ask them to write the differences
– actually, these are characteristics – on idea cards. At this point it is possible to
already ask people about patterns – what are the different sizes of landholdings,
livestock owned, types of houses, and so on. After completion of this part of the
exercise, ask people to group these characteristics – size of landholding,
livestock owned, type of house, type of food consumed, education, and so on….
Based on the grouping of the characteristics, ask people how many classes are
in the hamlet and ask them to label these. Most likely, people will come up with
categories – better off, middle, poor, very poor. You may not wish to put the
labels rich, middle, poor, as people may not be comfortable, but it is important to
have clearly established categories that are distinguishable from one another
To ensure that everyone agrees, ask someone to read back the characteristics in
each of the categories and give people the opportunity to make changes
Step 3 – ‘Class’ification
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Now, use the name cards that you created from the social map and call out each
household’s name and ask people from the specific neighborhood to place this
name in one of the categories / classes. It is important that for each household
(name card), people discuss why the card is being placed in a particular
category, making sure that there is agreement between the people from the
relevant neighborhood and double checking with all others. This process is likely
to lead to additional characteristics, e.g. indebtedness, migration, food security,
eating certain foods in certain seasons, etc. This process will lead to debates
amongst the participants and the facilitators should allow this debate to continue
and lead to a constructive conclusion. During this process, it is likely that new
categories /classes, e.g. lower middle, extreme poor, upper middle, emerge, as
some of the households do not fit the categories/ classes that have been
established. These should be added and the name cards that do not fit into rich,
middle, or poor, should be placed into the new categories.;
At this point, ask the participants to mark the name cards of women-headed
households, so that they can easily be identified as an interest group later on;
similarly, depending on the project’s objective, ask the participants to make the
name cards of households that seasonally migrate. Seasonal migration is
important for facilitators to know, because this will affect the availability of the
households, but it is also an indicator of poverty;
At the end of the exercise, the facilitator should inquire of the participants, if they
wish to add anything or make changes and thank the participants for being
generous with their time and inputs;
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Finally, all cards are numbered and coded in such a way that the categories with
the characteristics and names of households can be reconstructed in the office.
Cautionary Measures to Consider during the Session
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It is likely that there will be individuals, who are powerful in the community, that
will try to dominate / interrupt / or even control the session (‘gatekeepers’). This
is because many NGOs undertake well being analysis to determine who should
receive subsidies or be included in lists for distribution of rations, seed money,
etc. Such individuals will then try to steer the discussion in such a way that
members of their own kin clan, or their laborers, sharecroppers, etc. get access
to the resources that NGOs are bringing and subsequently they will take the
credit for this. It is important to ‘deal’ with such individuals by taking them aside
and doing an exercise or an interview that taps their knowledge of the locality, to
remove them from the session
It is also likely that people will try to put as many households as possible into the
poor categories and you need to be aware of that. This is why it is so important
that for each household you ask the larger group – not just one or two persons in
that group – to discuss why this card should be placed into a particular category.
The group should discuss most of characteristics of the particular category that
they wish to put the card into. Remember, that at least 3-4-5 of the
characteristics should apply, if a card is placed into that category.
Each hamlet has a large number of small children, who are likely to disturb the
session. It is important for each facilitating team to have one person that takes
the children aside and plays games, or undertakes an exercise that looks at the
community from the perspective of the children;
It is important for the facilitators to ensure that women and men from all classes
participate and contribute to the well being analysis and that there is interaction
between the participations to determine in which category the name cards are to
be placed and to collectively decide on the characteristics of each class
grouping. This will ensure a more accurate well being analysis;
It is best that the facilitators do not undertake the well being analysis in the first
few days of ‘entering’ a community, but that they get to know the place and make
sure that the community understand the goals and objective of the project. This
will avoid that people get the impression that CARE will provide hand-outs;
It is important that you double check this information and visit some of the
households to observe and see if the position within the well being category is
correct or needs to be changed.
Processing and Analyzing the Information
Once you have returned to the office, create a simple table on a large poster paper that
has three columns: class, characteristics and names of households. A copy of this table
should be provided to the community and a copy should be kept by the field office team.
The table provides a snap-shot of the class structure of the community, i.e. how many
households fall into which categories. The characteristics of the various classes will tell
you how members of the community define rich, middle, poor, very poor. For example, it
may be land (or lack of), employment, type of house, capital inputs, hunger, selling
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physical labor, education, and so on. The well being analysis allows you to see if wealth
is concentrated – held by few households – or dispersed. It provides you with a sense of
the size of landholdings of the rich, middle and poor and how various classes work the
land, e.g. with tractor power, animal power, or by the hoe. It shows who owns tractors or
livestock to plough and how is renting these and who cannot afford to rent. Similarly, it
show the kind of houses different classes live in, the type of education that children
obtain, and so on. This exercise is crucial in that it opens up new areas of inquiry
around farming or animal husbandry (and thus livelihoods), landownership and allocation
of land, access to education, and so on. Other participatory exercises can be created to
explore these in more detail in the future. Equally important, the well being analysis
provides you with the ability to identify your impact group in any given community and
explore their lived conditions in greater detail.
Potential Uses of Well-Being Analysis
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Understand the class composition of the community and the extent of wealth and
poverty and marginalization;
Identify impact groups;
Identify interest groups (widows, rickshaw van pullers, agricultural day laborers,
etc) for community led activities;
Begin to get an understanding of the economic relations between rich and poor
and middle and poor (who works for whom, etc) and find ways to reduce these
vertical dependencies;
This participatory analysis can be used by local government to identify the
poorest households in need of rations, or eligible for state funded schemes;
The analysis can be used to identify people trapped in high interest loans,
advanced wages, and or high interest micro-credit and to subsequently develop
strategies with these households to get out of such unequal relations.
Participatory Methodologies (Part II)
(Forthcoming)
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