Content

Key Concepts

Definition

History

Degree

Scope of Action

Project Cycle
Management

Methods

Approaches to
Participation

Rapid Rural
Appraisal

Participatory Rural
Appraisal

Participatory Action Research

Principles, Attitudes

Participatory
Project Cycle
Management

Type of Participatory
Projects

Application of participatory tools in the different project stages

Sector Specific Use
of Participatory Tools

List of Documents

Exercises

Strong or weak
participation

Stakeholder analysis

Participatory Action Research

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a more activist approach, working to empower the local community, or its representatives, to manipulate the higher level power structures. Claimed for a variety of interventions - World Bank-supported credit unions for the relatively privileged, Grameen-type banks for the very poor, community based paralegal training and litigation, voter education drives among the marginalized - PAR can empower a community, entrench local elite, right a wrong or totally mess things up. It depends on the extent of awareness and political savoir faire of the supporting outside organization.

PAR, which owes more to a radical activist tradition from the work of Paulo Freire and others in Latin America, derives some of its rationale from awareness that PRA, for all its emphasis on participation, capability building, ownership of knowledge and empowerment, is still fundamentally an extractive and intellectual exercise. The benefits PRA brings to local communities can be intangible and even disappointing. PAR, by contrast, works directly with local political/development capacities to bring real, visible organizational structures, effective local advocacy, and a durable change in power relations with the centre. If it can avoid the danger of entrenching self-interested local elite, and address honestly the long-term choices that must be made on resource utilization, it perhaps has the most potential of all the methods described to secure the resources for sustainable livelihoods.

Source: Participatory Research for Sustainable Livelihoods: A Guide for Field Projects on Adaptive Strategies

Participation Action Research is an umbrella term that includes several different methodologies. There are five main fields from which PAR has been developed:

• action research in organisations
• action research in schools
• farmer participatory research and technology generation
• participatory evaluation.

It has been used mostly in academic research and community adult literacy programmes world-wide and its use is gradually being expanded into other aspects of community development. 

Some of the major principles to this approach are:

• common values such as the value of local knowledge and a commitment to non-violent social change
• ownership of the research lies with the community involved
• commitment to action by the researcher in partnership with the community based on the learning that occurs
• participants are to be included at every stage of the research and special effort should be made to include groups not usually included
• research methods are selected based on their appropriateness to the situation and should be taught to local participants so that they can continue the inquiry process independently of the researcher
• outcomes are intended to benefit the community
• ownership of product in terms of methods used, interpretation of results, dissemination of results.

Source: UNDP Empowering People:  A Guide to Participation