In the period of October 1995 - January 1996 the Inter-regional Project for Participatory Upland Conservation and Development, GCP/INT/542/ITA, carried out a Participatory Rural Appraisal and Planning exercise in 26 communities of the Bhusunde Khola watershed. This was done by trained staff of the project itself. The PRAs generally lasted about 4 days, and resulted in a large number of data generated, as well as 26 Community Action Plans.
This report presents the results of that PRA and planning exercise. It describes methods and tools used and organizational aspects. Data are presented on (a) population and demography, including ethnic composition, literacy rates and local food sufficiency; (b) farming systems and land use, including data on land use categories; (c) crops and agricultural production, cropping patterns, seasonality, trend in productivity, problems and opportunities; (d) livestock and animal husbandry, numbers of animals per household, trends in livestock population, fodder and feed preferences, problems and opportunities; (e) Forests and natural resources, including a summary of soil and water resources problem ares. An overview is presented of the 26 Community Action Plans, which includes more than 220 planned activities.
It is concluded that as an information gathering tool each individual PRA was not very useful, but that the total of 26 PRAs provides satisfactory information. However, the PRA was not meant to be an information gathering exercise, rather to set the stage for participatory planning of development activities. In this respect the PRA and planning exercise was most successful.
Some recommendations are presented indicating the value of the PRA tools used, especially resource mapping and seasonality diagrams, in participatory monitoring and evaluation of the Community Action Plans. It is also recommended to slightly modify the PRA, focussing on user groups to avoid undue dominance by high profile people in the communities.
