Though the Community Action Plans were the genuine product of a participatory planning process there remains a lot of scope to improve the participatory planning procedures:
1. The participatory feasibility analysis should form an integral part of the CAP planning procedure. It is recommended that during PRA and the first community forum a draft CAP is prepared, after which each proposed activity should be subjected to a participatory feasibility analysis (PFA). The results of this PFA should than be presented and discussed again in a second community forum meeting, after which the CAP should be finalized. This planning mechanism could take place either at community, or at user group level, whichever is most convenient, as long as the PFA is done before finalizing the CAP.
2. There should always be clarity and transparency of the project's policy and implementation criteria. There are several sets of criteria in use, concerning (a) conditions user groups should fulfil to qualify for project support, (b) cost sharing conditions for the implementation of activities, and (c) criteria regarding what kind of activities the project would be willing to consider for support. It is important that communities are aware of these criteria during the planning procedures, and that these criteria remain as constant as possible.
3. Better use should be made of data on time utilization in farming systems as generated during PRA exercises. Such analysis would permit the calculation and timing of labour availability that could be used in the implementation of physical activities, or to take part in training events5.
5 This has already been put into practice in the Participatory Evaluation and Re-Planning Exercises In Bhusunde Khola watershed.
4. Systematic attention should be paid to the planning of training events in the participatory planning procedure.
5. Seemingly limitless variations between similar activities in different CAPs and vagueness within CAPs should be minimized by further improving the skills of the PRA and Planning facilitators, and by providing them with more detailed instructions.
