Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) is an approach to the analysis of local problems and the formulation of tentative solutions with local stakeholders. It makes use of a wide range of visualisation methods for group-based analysis to deal with spatial and temporal aspects of social and environmental problems. It mainly deals with a community-level scale of analysis but is increasingly being used to help deal with higher level, systemic problems.

PRA grew out of a range of methodologies including agro-ecosystems analysis and rapid rural appraisal in the 1970s and 80s, in which the emphasis was placed on finding ways to express the diversity of local knowledge through facilitation by outsiders. It evolved from two distinct traditions: planners seeking to overcome the limitations of externally-dominated blueprint planning; and empowerment-oriented activists seeking to make their social transformation ideals more pragmatic. PRA is increasingly being used autonomously by communities but is now so diverse in application that it is hard to speak of a single methodology. The term is somewhat misleading because the combination of techniques are equally applicable in urban settings and are not limited to appraisal — they are linked to planning processes and are being adapted for monitoring and evaluation purposes.

PRA provides a structure and many practical ideas to help stimulate local participation in the creation and sharing of new insights. The emphasis on ensuring community feedback broadens the group of people involved. It is increasingly linked to participatory planning processes (e.g. using adapted forms of logical framework analysis). Although PRA was not intended to collect statistically significant information, it is increasingly used in combination with other methodologies to fulfil more scientific information needs and is easily made complementary.

There is no single way to ‘do’ PRA, although there are core principles and over 30 methods available to guide teamwork, do sampling, structure discussions and visualise analysis. The combination and sequence of methods will emerge from the context. Optimal ignorance and triangulation of findings guide the fieldwork in recognition of the need to know enough without knowing it all and to ensure that the qualitative insights are cross-checked by different sources using different methods.

The core principles are:

• sustained learning process: enhancing cumulative learning for action by participants is the focus and has three outputs: identifying strategies for improvement, motivating people to undertake these strategies, and enhancing their capacity for solving problems;
• different perspectives in group-based analysis: PRA explicitly seeks insights from and an understanding of the needs of different individuals and groups, which may be conflicting but will better show the complexity of local situations;
• key role for facilitators: to include different perspectives often means challenging local traditions of communication, which requires sensitive facilitation (often someone from outside the area but also increasingly a role taken on by someone with a local stake in the process);
• systemic and methodological basis: creating a structured process that explores problems within the wider context and not just focusing on a narrow slice of reality - from description to analysis and action; and
• context-specific: unique social/physical conditions means building a process of discussion, communication and conflict resolution - which by necessity evolves out of the specifics of the local context.

See PRA in practice

You can also download the 2 minute movie here (rightclick mouse, save as)(4Mb)

Further reading:

• Chambers (1997) Whose reality counts?
• Dunn (1994) Rapid rural appraisal
• Guijt and Shah (1998) The myth of community
• Holland with Blackburn (1998) Whose voice?
• IIED (1987) Participatory Learning and Action notes
• IIED Resource Centre website
• Pretty, Guijt et al. (1995) Participatory learning and action
• World Bank (1996) The World Bank participation sourcebook