Participatory video
Participatory video (PV) is a communication approach to video production and sharing in which community members and stakeholders actively participate in the planning, creation and dissemination of video content. This process empowers individuals and groups to share their knowledge, perspectives, experiences and concerns using the medium of video to raise awareness, advocate for change or document their own stories and realities. FAO is promoting PV as applied to extension services, farmer field schools, innovation systems, digital agriculture and its appropriation by communities, farmer organizations and rural institutions through online and offline capacity development initiatives.
Case studies have demonstrated the salience of PV in development. A classic illustrative example in Tabasco, Mexico shows the pivotal role of PV in enhancing the capacity and decision making power of farmer organizations within the context of a major rural development initiative. Similarly, PV has been used to support Indigenous Peoples’ organizations in Bolivia in their efforts to document and share local knowledge. Over time, the application of PV has found relevance in diverse countries and contexts, including the use of PV to facilitate farmer uptake of agricultural practices in Ethiopia, as well as a wide array of programmes to support video-mediated farmer extension implemented by Digital Green.
A number of global and regional PV capacity development programmes are being organized by FAO within the context of three regional ComDev initiatives – YenKasa Africa, ComDev Asia and Onda Rural, in partnership with Digital Green and the College of Development Communication at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). These training programmes are attended by participants from institutions, farmer organizations, academia, FAO programmes and partners from over 20 countries. To ensure sustained participation in the initiative, FAO ComDev and its implementing partners support technical assistance activities and maintain online PV communities of practice (CoPs) as part of the work of the three regional initiatives.
Several PV resources are available online, including the practitioner’s guide, Participatory video in agrifood systems and digital environments (available in five languages), and the e-learning course Participatory Video for Development, co-produced with the FAO elearning Academy and the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITC-ILO).
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