Module 6 - Analyzing and understanding linkages

The definition of the linkages between livelihoods and institutions is the most important output of the investigation described in these guidelines. However, most of the information required to develop these linkage profiles will have been carried out during the previous stages of the investigation - the community profile, the household livelihood profiles, and the institutional profiles. As a result, this final step in the investigative process should not require a great deal of additional collection of information. Taking the different livelihood assets and activities identified in the household livelihood profiles described in Module 4, and the groups impacted by different institutions identified in the institutional profiles described in Module 5, investigators should already have the starting point for analyzing in more detail how the livelihoods and institutions are linked. The other information that has fed into their work so far should also be sufficient to define the different aspects of these linkages that could be significant for development work in the future.

Further field work does play a role at this stage of the investigation, but it is likely to be in the form of discussions with groups of respondents and with representatives of different stakeholder groups and communities, to validate the conclusions that the investigating team has developed.

This module presents some approaches that can be used to identify, analyze and understand linkages, ending with a look at the “vertical” relationships between local institutions and higher- level policies, institutions and processes as these affect livelihoods.

1. The process for developing linkage profiles

An overall process for developing the linkage profiles is shown in Figure 10. This process assumes that sufficient information has already been generated from the community, livelihood and institutional profiles. If this preliminary work has been completed thoroughly, the principle challenge facing investigators should be to decide what information is relevant and which linkages are of real importance for their investigation.

Figure 10 - Suggested Process for Linkage Profiles

2. Identifying “key linkages”

A study following the guidance offered so far in these guidelines, even if carried out in only one community, could produce an enormous number of potential linkages between the livelihoods of local people and the local institutional environment in which they live. The first task facing the investigating team will be to decide which of these linkages is actually significant for the purposes of its study and the development interventions that they may generate. Ideally, investigators should analyze all the linkages they have identified and assess their relative importance in order to arrive at an “unbiased” conclusion about which of them significant and needs to be addressed by future action. In practice, the time and resources necessary to carry out such an undertaking may not be available. However, the criteria that investigators will need to use for assessing the relative importance of different linkages will remain essentially the same, whether they are being used to carry out a global assessment of all the linkages identified or a “quick and dirty” filtering of different linkages so that the team can focus its time and energy on those that seem likely to be most important. The “weight” given to different criteria will depend, to some extent, on the context in which the study has been carried out and the objectives that have been set for the investigation by the project or programme of which it is part.

The different criteria listed below will always play some role in the selection of what constitutes a key linkage.

1. Frequency with which a particular linkage occurs or is referred to Particular linkages that are mentioned again and again by respondents, whether directly or indirectly, during the course of the investigation probably represent important linkages. There may be considerable “subjectivity” in this importance - for example, if there has been a case of a local person being unjustly accused of illegally cutting firewood the week before the study takes place, it is probable that the linkages between forestry conservation regulations and the livelihoods of firewood collectors will be repeatedly brought up, even if it is the first time that such a problem has ever occurred.

2. Number of different livelihood strategies affected by a particular institutional linkage

A particular institution may affect a large number of livelihood strategies and therefore have general importance for the community or area as a whole. A micro-credit programme might have made financial resources available for people to invest in a wide range of different livelihood activities. If this programme were referred to in conjunction with many different livelihood strategies, it could probably be assumed to represent a “key linkage”. If people engaged in a number of different livelihood strategies involving natural resource use all complain about increases in local taxes imposed on resource users following the decentralization of government to the local level, it is reasonable to assume that there is an important linkage between “decentralized local government” as an institution and local livelihoods. Some institutions may be so pervasive in local society that they influence practically all livelihood strategies in one way or another. Dowry or bride-price is a good example of an institution (which may or may not be strictly local) that can represent such a significant influence on the resources available to a household that it will affect any activity undertaken by that household both before and after the marriage of the family’s offspring.

3. Number of people affected by a particular institutional linkage In some cases, the number of people affected by a single institutional linkage may be more important than the diversity of livelihoods affected by a particular institution. For example, traditional customs regarding the passage of land rights from one generation to the next may only directly influence one or two livelihood strategies involving agriculture and agricultural labour, but in a society that is predominantly agricultural this could constitute a major linkage that affects most households in one way or another.

4. Number of poor or vulnerable people affected by a particular linkage Particularly where an investigation is being carried out in the context of a poverty elimination or alleviation programme, the importance of a particular institutional linkage is liable to be measured in terms of how it affects on the poor or those who are vulnerable to poverty. However, even where the poverty focus of a programme is not explicit, the relative poverty of those affected by linkages between institutions and livelihood strategies should always be taken into consideration when identifying which linkages are important. Many institutional linkages may have apparently relatively “minor” impacts on some livelihood strategies, but these “minor” impacts may be disproportionately important for poorer households. In other cases, particular linkages may have very different impacts on the same livelihood strategy depending on the relative poverty of those involved. For example, domination of marketing arrangements for fish by combined fish buyers, money-lenders and dealers in fishing supplies may reduce the benefits from fishing for some fishers - they may be forced to sell at set prices to a particular buyer when they have sufficient mobility and capacity to absorb risk that they could take advantage of a more competitive market. But for poorer fishers, ties with a fixed buyer may represent a significant source of security, enabling them to “pass on” some of the risks inherent in fishing to the buyer, in exchange for a poorer price when catches are good and a dependent relationship that may offer limited prospects for long-term livelihood improvement.

If a sample survey has been carried out as part of the investigation, the team members should be able to make some quantitative estimates regarding the criteria above. But if they do not have precise numbers regarding, for example, the number of poor affected by a particular linkage, they can make an estimate based on the information they do have and then validate their estimates with local people later in the process of developing linkage profiles.

3. Developing draft linkage profiles

Once these key linkages have been identified, the team can use the information it has already collected to develop a set of draft profiles for these linkages.

There are several ways in which these can be approached.

1. Starting from a particular group of people

This will perhaps be the most common way of starting a linkage profile, as it focuses attention on the people at the centre of the investigation and will help investigators to analyze linkages through their eyes. These groups of people need to be carefully defined so that the precise linkages that affect different groups can be made clearly. For example, agricultural labourers could be taken as a starting point for the linkage profile, but care would be required to see whether there are different linkages that affect different types of labourers in different ways - such as male labourers, female labourers, children, etc. In this case, investigators might need to pay attention to breaking the groups of people into more distinct interest groups.

2. Starting from livelihood strategies

The starting point for a linkages profile could be a particular livelihood strategy (such as fishing or agricultural labour). Where a particular strategy is seen to be important for a large number of different people and to have particularly complex institutional linkages, this could be a good approach. It will enable the team to systematically analyze all these linkages and understand how they effect the different groups of people involved in that livelihood strategy.

3. Starting from livelihood assets

Where particular assets that make up or contribute to the livelihoods of people are a focus for concern, these could be taken as a starting point as well. For example, if the findings of the study so far suggest the need for a detailed analysis of the linkages between water for irrigation, the livelihoods that are de pendent on it and local institutions, water for irrigation could become the starting point.

4. Starting from institutions

The institutions themselves can also be taken as a starting point for the linkage profiles. This can allow the team to assess in detail the different range of livelihoods and groups of people that a particular institution might affect in different ways.

The tables below show how these linkage profiles could be developed systematically.

Table 1 deals with households engaged in a particular form of fishing activity and belonging to a particular social group. Focussing on the main activity that defines this particular group, as in this case, has the advantage of allowing investigators probably to concentrate on a relatively limited number of institutions that are connected in some way or another with that particular activity. The disadvantage of this approach is that it limits the livelihoods of those people to that particular activity, when in actual fact their livelihoods will consist of much more. However, in certain cases this focus on a particular activity could be useful.

In Table 2, the starting point is a particular social and gender group and a range of different activities and assets used by that group for its livelihood. This approach places the people involved firmly at centre stage and may be particularly important where poor and vulnerable households are involved. The main disadvantage of this approach is that it can become overly complex if all the different elements in a particular group of people’s livelihoods are taken into consideration. Investigators have to use their judgement to establish which activities are sufficiently important to be fully analyzed for their institutional linkages.

Table 3 starts the linkage profile from a particular institution and the various features and attributes of that institution (taken from the institutional profile) and then goes on to analyze the different livelihood strategies and assets affected and the people impacted by these effects. This approach is obviously recommended where clearly important and influential institutions have been identified and there is a need to fully understand the depth and breadth of their influence on people’s livelihoods. The complexity of some institutions will generate very sizeable tables with many possible livelihoods linkages.

Table 20 - Linkage Profiles - Baraley Village Abaduk Swamp Fishing Households

Table 21 - Linkage Profiles - Cosuma Village Destitute Widows

Table 22 - Linkage Profiles - Yaratuk Village Relationship between Local Fish Buyers and Fishers

During the development of these draft linkages, several issues need to be kept in mind that will help the team to identify gaps in its knowledge and complete the profiles effectively.

Care in identifying different groups affected in different ways by different linkages

In order to understand the linkages properly, it is essential that the different groups of people affected by linkages be defined as precisely as possible. This involves paying the maximum attention to possible differences in effects according to:

Gender;
Age;
Ethnic group;
Family or kinship group;
Class or caste.

This will often complicate the analysis considerably, but it is vital if livelihood linkages are to be properly understood. Referring back to the community profile and the livelihoods profiles should help in this respect.

Clearly identify the impacts on the livelihood outcomes of these different groups

The actual end results or impacts of the different linkages on the outcomes experienced by different groups of people need to be identified as clearly possible. Where they are not yet clear, they can be noted down for discussion during the validation process.

Identify past and current changes

Understanding what changes have taken place in the past and what changes are currently taking place with respect to different linkages is required if the dynamic nature of the linkages is to be appreciated. Again, where these are not yet clear based on information from the community, livelihoods and institutional profiles, they can be discussed further during validation meetings.

Recognize where there are gaps in the team’s knowledge to date

The investigators need to be ready to admit that they may not have been able to collect all the information they need to fully understand the linkages they are looking at. Pretending to know is even more dangerous than not knowing at all, so it is important that gaps be admitted and recognized so that efforts can be made during validation to fill them, or to set up systems for filling them in the future.

4. Validating linkage profiles with focus groups

At this stage, a further process of validation of the findings of the investigation is important for several reasons.

Validation of investigators’ identification of WHO is affected by linkages

The validation process needs to carried out with different groups that have been identified as those affected by different key linkages. The process of validating findings will allow investigators to ensure that their assessment of who is affected by different linkages is correct. This will provide an invaluable basis for future stakeholder analysis for possible development interventions that the investigation may generate.

Validation of investigators’ “interpretations” of findings

Many features of the linkages identified between local institutions and livelihoods are likely to be subject to interpretation. Investigating teams need to compare their interpretation of what they have learnt with the interpretation of local people.

Validation processes as empowerment - building a relationship with the subjects of development

The process of validating information with the people who have provided that information is an empowering process. It ensures that the investigative process is not purely extractive and that local people can take ownership of the information that has been generated. This can be particularly important for creating a solid basis for future work in the communities involved. If people feel they have participated in and contributed to the process of identifying what needs to be done, they will be far more likely to take ownership of and responsibility for the interventions and activities that follow. In addition, the process of reviewing learning together with people who are the “subjects” of that learning can help to establish a process of reflection about and constructive criticism of current conditions that can prove invaluable during later stages of development interventions. Validation processes can give local people the means to interact on an even footing with “outsiders” - whether they be researchers, investigators or project implementers - and to reflect critically both on their own conditions and on the processes and changes to which they are subject. The creation, early on in the project process, of an environment where the subjects of development can contribute key elements to the process of implementing development interventions can significantly enhance the effectiveness of those interventions.

Validation can be carried out with individuals, and there may some particularly sensitive issues that are best discussed with single key informants rather than with groups. But as a general rule, the validation process should usually be a group process. Representatives of the specific groups identified need to be gathered into focus group meetings and the findings relating to those groups presented to them in as clear a way as possible. In many cases, it may be possible to simplify the tables used to analyze livelihoods, institutions and linkages to help in presentations. But it may be more appropriate to use other visual techniques that can be more easily grasped.

The validation will usually need to be carried out on several “levels”. One level is specific interest groups, defined by the differential impacts they experience or by their common interests in a particular form of livelihood strategy or institution. It may often happen that different individuals will participate in several group validation sessions that look at different sets of issues from different points of view.

At a higher level, some kind of community validation is also possible and even recommended, bearing mind that it is likely to create some level of expectation regarding what may follow. At the community level, a validation session can certainly provide an opportunity to identify some key issues relating to linkages between livelihood strategies and local institutions that everyone agrees upon and that might therefore become a useful entry point for subsequent development interventions.

An important element in an effective community validation session can be the involvement of local people to help with the presentation and facilitation of the discussion. Investigators may have already been able to identify specific individuals who are either regarded with respect by the rest of the community or who have been particularly interested in the investigation and seem to have a good understanding of the issues covered. “Handing over the stick” to local people can help to make discussion freer and the whole process less intimidating for those participants not used to taking part in meetings.

The limitations of community-level validation meetings need to be recognized. No matter how participatory the facilitation methods used, and no matter whether local people are actively involved in the presentation, there will always be some community members who do not feel at ease in the environment of a large group and will not contribute actively to the proceedings. Often these will be the poorest and most vulnerable groups in the community who, if they come at all to such meetings, will generally assume that, because they are poor and vulnerable, nobody is interested in hearing what they have to say. Facilitators in such meetings can try to draw out such groups, but they may have to accept that they are unlikely to contribute much in that environment and they may need to be approached as a separate group in different circumstances.

5. Supplementary methods to fill in the gaps

Discussions held as part of the validation process may bring up new issues, new linkages and even new institutions that the investigative team feels it needs to look at. More likely, there are likely to be specific issues that require more detailed understanding. Within the time and resources available, the team may decide to collect further information regarding these issues.

At this stage of the investigation, some of the most useful approaches are likely to be:

Timelines to assist in more detailed analysis of the changes and processes going on within institutions and in their relations with people in the community;

Key informant interviews with specific respondents who have specialized knowledge of aspects of the institutions that have been seen to be not fully understood.

Perhaps most importantly, at this stage, the investigators will need to take stock of those aspects of the linkages between institutions and livelihoods that they feel they cannot fully understand or describe in the context of the study they have undertaken. Based on the validation process, the team should be able to identify potential mechanisms which will allow them, or the agencies they represent, to establish a regular contact with the communities they have worked in and continue the process of learning about institutional processes within those communities in the future.

In particular, if the investigation and validation process has been facilitated effectively, local people should become accustomed to using a set of communication tools - maps, timelines, diagrams of various sorts, matrices and tables to analyze information - that can become a means of communicating new learning in the future. This can form a critical part of a continuing process of assessment, reflection, monitoring and evaluation that can use the focus groups as regular reference points. Both specific interest groups and community-level groups can become the basis for future participatory monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

Through these mechanisms, investigators will have the opportunity to continue the process of learning about institutional-livelihood linkages as their work in the communities continues.

The Malatuk Story - analyzing and understanding linkages

Once they have completed the institutional profiles, Musa and the team spend two full days simply trying to put the information they have collected in some kind of order. The tables they have used throughout the study have helped them to remember what types of information they have collected about different aspect issues, but they still have an enormous amount of data to sift through and make sense of.

Once they feel confident that they can put their hands on more or less all the different pieces of learning they have accumulated, they sit down to tackle the final set of analysis for their investigation - the profiles of the linkages between local institutions and household livelihood strategies. Musa suggests that they start the process off working all together to “brainstorm” a format for these profiles. The FAO Guidelines provide some suggestions, but Musa has already noticed that, for some of the linkages they have identified, the tables suggested in Module 6 of the guidelines may need to be developed upon further.

Right away, the team gets into a lengthy discussion about whether it is better to analyze these linkages taking the institutions as a starting point or the household livelihood strategies. There are clearly advantages and disadvantages to each approach - Dewi feels that it would be better to start off from the institutions, while Ravi and Diana are strongly in favour of starting with specific livelihood strategies. Daniel suggests that they might try out both approaches to see which works best. So they decide to do their first two “linkage profiles” as a team to try to sort out how they might best be done.

So that they can compare approaches, they decide to look for an institution and a livelihood strategy that seem to be linked. From their work in Cosuma, they identify a local institution - the milk and dairy cooperative - and a group of people involved in a set of livelihood strategies that they know are linked to this institution - poor female-headed households. This immediately leads Musa to raise a question - are they looking at groups of people that have common strategies or at specific strategies? They decide to focus on the group of people to see how this works.

Dewi takes the lead in the profile dealing with the cooperative as an institution. From their institutional profiles, they have a list of “key attributes” of the cooperative, which they place in the left-hand column of the table. They group these attributes in the same way that they are grouped in the institutional profile - first, they put down the various features relating to the “visibility and invisibility” of the organization, then its objectives and activities, and finally the “inclusiveness and exclusiveness”. For each of these “attributes”, they note which specific livelihood activities or strategies are affected by it, what the effects are and who is impacted.

For example, from their institutional profile of the cooperative, they know that the regular meetings held for cooperative members are seen, by some cooperative members, as too frequent and having a negative effect on the time they have available for other activities. This is particularly true for the better-off farmers who participate in the cooperative. For most of them, raising livestock for milk is just one of a range of agricultural activities they are engaged in. This “negative impact” of the one aspect of the cooperative - its regular meetings - on one group of cooperative members - better-off farmers - gets noted in the respective columns of the linkage profile table.

But for some other cooperative members, notably poorer women involved in very small-scale livestock raising, these meetings are very important in several ways. They help them to understand the workings of the cooperative; they provide a regular means for many of these women to meet and exchange news, views and experience; and they also provide perhaps the only forum where these women feel they can air their views. Starting from the same attribute of the institution, this different linkage involving a different group of people is noted down in the same way.

The team uses the very approximate scoring system suggested in the FAO Guidelines to give some idea of how important the impact of some of these different points is to the groups concerned. Ravi and Dewi point out that they actually have some data from their community and livelihoods profiles that can help them to quantify these impacts more precisely. In their table they include a reference to this data and where it can be found so that, in their final write-up, they can fill out the details as an addition to the table.

When they move on to looking at the dynamic aspects of these linkages and the changes that have taken place in the past and are taking place now, the process becomes a bit more complicated. They eventually decide that they need to add several extra columns to the ones suggested in the FAO Guidelines to cover all the different aspects of these changes thoroughly. Besides just noting the changes taking place, they decide to indicate what impacts these changes have had, how important those impacts are, whether they are changes that have taken place in the past or are going on now, and whether there are other institutions involved in these changes. This effectively adds another table, but the team decides that, particularly when they are dealing with an institution as a starting point, it is important to include these factors.

For the cooperative, this is particularly important, as changes in the economic policy of the government and the withdrawal of subsidies have had a very significant effect on what the cooperative can and cannot do, and has impacted on the livelihoods of some of the cooperative’s members very significantly. The increase in fodder prices that followed the withdrawal of subsidies particularly affected many female-headed households, most of whom have no land but raise two or three milk cows, which represent one of their only sources of regular income. As there is practically no common property land in Cosuma that is suitable for grazing, these women had been particularly dependent on subsidised fodder in order to continue this activity.

As a response to this change, new institutional arrangements have developed in the village whereby women no longer own the milk animals, but they rear them and look after them on behalf of their owners. They take the animals to graze on their owners plots, and in exchange for this service they get to keep all the milk they produce. Once the animals reach reproductive age, the women also get to keep the first of their offspring, whilst the other offspring and the animals themselves are returned to the owners. It seems that this cattle-rearing arrangement among households has always existed as a local institution, but has recently become very important to the very poor.

Once the team members are satisfied with this first linkage profile, they try looking at one of the groups they have already mentioned in the profile, taking them as the starting point of the analysis. After placing female-headed households involved in livestock raising at the top of the table, they list a series of activities that they know these households are involved in -clearly livestock raising, but also agricultural labour, firewood collection and sale, seasonal fishing in flooded areas - and also some particular assets that they depend on for their livelihoods -the local grain supplier who provides subsidised rice rations, the local health centre, the well where they fetch water.

For each of these, they identify institutions that influence, or are influenced by, these activities or assets, what these influences are, and who in particular is impacted by them. What quickly becomes apparent is that, while the “institutional approach” used before helped them to understand the complex influences that particular institutions could have on many different groups of people and livelihood activities, this “livelihood approach” helps them to understand better how the many different strands of people’s livelihoods are combined and how the influence of one institution can change the relations of a household with another institution.

As they discuss the different approaches they have used, it becomes increasingly apparent that both are necessary and it is largely a question of deciding where one is more appropriate than the other. Even here, it is clear that the two approaches will often overlap and there will be considerable repetition, but Musa feels that this is unavoidable and is not necessarily a bad thing.

At this point, the team splits up, with each person taking the responsibility for completing a set of linkage profiles about groups or institutions that she or he has been involved in investigating. Altogether they have about 30 linkages for which they have decided they need to develop profiles. Taking institutions and livelihoods as different starting points, they find that some of these linkages end up being incorporated into one “profile”, but they still produce a pretty impressive range of tables. Once they have completed them all, each team member presents a profile to the rest of the group and incorporates comments and criticisms as far as possible.

The whole process of developing these “draft” profiles takes several days, but at the end the team members agree that it has provided them with an excellent way of taking stock of what they had done during the study. Generally, everyone feels very satisfied. Musa calls their attention to the final column in the linkage profile tables in the FAO Guidelines, the one dealing with “hopes, fears aspirations and expectations”. So far, they have not attempted to include this area, although they have considerable information about what local people feel can and should be done to improve conditions. But Musa now focuses their attention on the fact that, at the end of the day, the MPAP will want the team not just to tell a story but to make recommendations about how the project should act in the future in dealing with local institutions. This brings the team back down to earth as they realize that they do not really have a systematic means of drawing out “recommendations”.

It is Diana who suggests that maybe the best way to do this would be to go back to the various focus groups they have talked to in the different communities and, while validating the conclusions that the team has arrived at - something they planned to do anyway - they could also initiate a discussion about what to do about those conclusions. This prompts Musa to recall again the interest of the Monitoring and Evaluation Cell of the project in her work, and she decides that it is time to get them involved. She is worried about the time available to them. Carrying out another round of visits to the communities will definitely take them longer than the time given to them to complete the study, and Musa does not want to go to the Team Leader to ask for an extension when she knows that they have already been lucky to get the amount of time they have already had for the investigation.

As they discuss their options, Daniel makes the point that one of the most important findings from the investigation, at least for him, is that the people in the communities they have visited mostly have very clear ideas about what needs to be done to make things better. He suggests, half jokingly, that maybe they should get the communities to present the results of the studies to the MPAP staff. Musa is momentarily taken aback but, as she turns the idea over in her mind, she thinks that she might be able incorporate their validation exercise, the presentation of key findings and the engagement of the monitoring and evaluation specialist into one “event”.

She explains to her team members how they might be able to involve staff from the project to come down to the communities to take part in the validation sessions. That way they will be able to hear about the key issues directly from the people concerned, talk with them about possible future courses of action for the project and see how the focus group mechanisms that they have initiated during the investigation could become contact points for the project. The Monitoring and Evaluation Cell could also take part to see how these groups could be replicated in other project areas and become a key mechanism for community participation - something Musa knows the monitoring and evaluation specialists are still struggling with. By the end of the process (which would correspond more or less to the end of the time available for the investigation), sufficient people within the project would have been “informed” about key findings for a workshop to be held within the project in which the outputs could be presented and feed directly into the planning processes for project activities that the Team Leader is anxious to get underway.

Musa hopes that this strategy might win her and the team some extra time to complete their write-up of the report. She decides to propose this to the Team Leader. She gets the team to work out a schedule for the validation procedure and a basic format that the meetings at focus group and community level might follow. She approaches some of her colleagues in the project to sound out their availability and their reactions to the idea. There is some skepticism about the usefulness of the approach, but she also encounters a significant level of enthusiasm among some of the technical specialists, who feel that they have been sitting too long in the provincial capital and have not yet had any real opportunity to get out in the field and engage with local people.

Musa presents her idea to the Team Leader, at the same time reviewing what the team feels are some of the really important findings it has come up with and showing him the sort of outputs that the team has produced so far. The Team Leader is enthusiastic. He immediately calls in the head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Cell and asks him to cooperate in planning the validation meetings with Musa and the team. A meeting of the whole project team is organized a few days later, at which Musa is asked to present more or less what she has presented to the Team Leader to the project staff. Musa gets Ravi to come along and divide the presentation with her and field some of the questions regarding the practicalities of carrying out these validation meetings.

When the Team Leader suggests that the project staff should cooperate with Musa, there is some grumbling that this will disrupt ongoing activities, but the reaction is generally positive, as people can see how this could provide a far more solid platform for planning their activities than the various technical assessments that they have carried out so far. The Team Leader also commits himself to come to at least one of the communities to look at the validation proves himself.

Ravi voices some concern that these village meetings might turn into a “circus”, as he puts it - he is worried that the presence of a lot of new “outsiders” will intimidate people and make it difficult to carry out a meaningful discussion. So it is agreed that there should never be more than six people altogether from the project at any one meeting and that new “visitors” should spend some time in the communities before the meetings take place in order for their presence to be “assimilated” by local people. They decide that they will have three people from the investigative team and three other project staff members in each community.

They have some problems deciding how to split up the team for these meetings. In the end, they decide that Musa and Ravi should take part in all three communities as they are likely to be the ones who continue to work in the project throughout its lifespan. In addition, in each community, one of the team members who took part in the field work will accompany them. Dewi is no longer available in any case, as she has had to return to the university, so Daniel and Diana take turns working with Musa and Ravi in different communities. With two extra people from the MPAP in each village, this means that they form a team of five people for the validation process in each community.

When it comes down to Musa’s colleagues from the project making themselves available, the initial enthusiasm seems to slacken off a little. In the end, Musa gets one senior staff from the Monitoring and Evaluation Cell, who decides to come to all three communities. They then suggest that two technical specialists from the most relevant technical disciplines come and take part. In Baraley, the project’s specialists in agricultural extension and the fisheries join the team. For Yaratuk, the fisheries specialist stays with them and is joined by the marketing specialist, while in Cosuma the experts in food crops and aquaculture take part.

Musa is able to get some of the other extension specialists in the project team to cooperate in preparing these meetings, and they provide some valuable suggestions about how to get the findings of the investigation across to people in a clear and easily understood way.

The meetings prove a great success. In Cosuma, where the community has already experienced several studies by outside researchers in the past, the local leaders and the community are astonished to see the team return, since, as they say, “we never know what happens to all that information that gets collected”. It is quite a new experience for the “findings” of the study to be brought back to them for discussion. In Baraley, the arrival of more new faces causes a considerable stir and it proves quite difficult to keep meetings with focus groups small, as everyone always wants to join in. The team members are forced to spend an extra day there to allow the excitement to die down a little so that they can hold their meetings with the specific groups of people whom they want to talk to.

The responses to the linkages that the team presents are mixed - there is always some disagreement about the priorities that the team has assigned to different institutional linkages, but, from Musa’s point of view, the most important thing is that the presentation generates a great deal of discussion and a whole range of interesting suggestions about what could be done.

These are all put together and become essential inputs for the planning process of the MPAP.