Background
The present guide is based on the experiences gained from FAO executed projects in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Zambia. The projects were community-based and aimed at improving nutrition, household food security and poverty alleviation. The projects were designed through a preparatory phase or pre-project, whereby extensive use was made of methods and tools for participatory appraisal, analysis and planning. The preparatory phase was not a one-off exercise. It also served as a starting point for an iterative process of participatory appraisal, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, although the steps beyond project design are not subjects of this guide.
Many different stakeholders representing interested parties and institutions at various levels participated in the pre-projects. They came from the community level, sub-district, district, provincial or regional and the national levels. International stakeholders in the form donor agency representatives, specialised technical agencies and non-governmental organisations were also involved at specific points during the process.
The process that was followed in both cases can be split into four broad steps. These included:
(1) A district-based orientation and training exercise.
(2) A participatory appraisal at community level.
(3) Based on the results of step (1) and (2), a holistic situation analysis.
(4) Followed by an integrated and objective-oriented planning process at district, regional and national level.
Aim
The aim of this guide is to provide a methodology for persons tasked with the responsibility of appraising and analysing nutrition and household food security situations with a view to use this information for project design, planning and evaluation. The users may be external consultants or resource persons, as well as field staff involved in projects or programs.
Purpose
The purpose of guide is to appraise and analyse food security and nutrition situations from the perspective of people’s livelihoods. This may be done with a view to use the resulting analysis for the design of free-standing nutrition and household food security projects, as was the case in the above mentioned projects. The guide also provides suggestions on how to adapt the process so that it may be used for the integration of nutrition and household food security considerations and objectives into sector-specific or poverty alleviation projects or for participatory monitoring and evaluation.
Stakeholders
Multiple stakeholders are involved in the process. External consultants and resource persons are only involved as facilitators and are as such not stakeholders per se. Although they may have been recruited by a stakeholder like the national government or a development agency. They use their expertise to train, help design and carry out the appraisal, interpret and analyse the results and develop intervention strategies.
The real stakeholders are the local people and those with direct or indirect links to them. They include first and foremost the individuals, households, communities and community groups whose livelihoods are being investigated. A second stakeholder category is civil society, which in the broadest sense comprises all those organisations that form a link between the local people and the public/private sector institutions. The third category comprises the public sector including government institutions from local, district, regional or provincial, national and international level. The last and often forgotten category is the private sector.
Contents
To guide the user, the guide is divided in four parts. Part 1 provides useful background and information on how this guide was developed. Part 2 looks into concepts, approaches and terminology that are used in this manual. Part 3 explains the different uses of the methodology provided and shows how to use the manual depending on the purpose. Part 4 constitutes the main methodological guide and deals with the four major steps of preparing for and carrying out appraisal, analysis of the findings and planning of interventions. Part 5 provides a series of guidance sheets to facilitate the different events and exercises, from stakeholder workshops, over participatory appraisal tools, to analysis and planning methods.
