It is now conventional wisdom that the numerous small water bodies dotting the landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa offer tremendous potential for increasing fisheries production in the region. Some estimates put the potential production from this source at about 1 million tons per year for the entire region.
Attempting to increase the production of fish from these water bodies requires intervention on several different related aspects. The existing biological conditions of water bodies have to be fully understood in order to decide what sort of intervention is most appropriate. Technical solutions have to be designed which are accessible to local people, socio-economically viable and appropriate for the fisheries resources which are to be exploited.
Zimbabwe perhaps has more unrealised fisheries potential in small water bodies than other countries of the region. There are several thousand water bodies in the country; most if not all of these are man-made. The vast majority is less than 100 hectares in size.
Many of these small water bodies are situated on private land owned by commercial farmers who have exclusive rights to their exploitation. However, a large number are located on “communal lands.” Control of these communal water bodies comes in a variety of forms, depending on when and where they were built and who they were built by. Most government - built dams are, however, “public”, with relatively open access, and are exploited mostly by people living in nearby communities.
In addition to the physical potential for fish production from water bodies in the country, there appears to be a strong demand for fish which could provide the required economic incentives for increasing fish production. People in both rural and urban areas of the country seem to be familiar with fish and to like it as a food. People already fish extensively in the water bodies and some rivers are apparently quite heavily exploited. Many commercial fish farms are operating in the country, supplying fish mainly to domestic markets. In addition, there is an industrial fishery on Lake Kariba for kapenta (Limnothrissa miodon) which provides mostly dried fish to markets throughout the country.
All these factors indicate that increased fish production from small water bodies could be viable from the economic and technical points of view. With this in mind, ALCOM has prepared an outline of activities which could be undertaken to enhance fish production from small water bodies in Zimbabwe.
In general, the technical aspects of the fisheries of small water bodies in Southern Africa have not posed insuperable obstacles for fisheries development. Technical options for small water body fisheries are fairly well-defined and well-understood. However, the design of development activities which will succeed has been shown to involve far more than the proposal of technically viable alternatives to existing practices. In particular, the complexity of the social and economic factors which influence the acceptance of particular technical innovations is just beginning to be understood.
In general terms, the problem is that people everywhere are different. Some of the differences are predictable, related to ethnicity, religious beliefs, social norms and values, social and economic status, or a large range of economic factors. These can be expected to influence people's actions in relatively predictable ways. However, the actions and ideas of every group of people, and every person, are subject to an enormous range of other influences which are far more difficult to predict. This may be either because they only affect that individual or community of people or because they depend on transitory conditions or states : seasonal variations, natural (or unnatural) calamities, changes in the local, national or international economy, changes in flows of information or power within a community, births and deaths, losing or being offered a job: the list is potentially endless.
All these factors can affect the feasibility of any development activity because they can affect the way people will react to that activity. It is, in fact, impossible to eliminate the element of risk in planning a development activity and unthinkable that planners will be able to account for every eventuality. However, proper attention to the particular conditions in the area or community where an activity is taking place can help planners to design an activity which will fit the physiognomy of that particular community as closely as possible. Above all, any planning process has to take account of the ideas, priorities and existing knowledge of the people who make up the communities that will be affected by the planned developments.
In the case of small water bodies, this may mean taking every single community or group of communities that live around the thousands of water bodies in Southern Africa and treating them as separate cases, each of which will require different approaches, different activities and different solutions.
How can planners cope with this diversity? One of the ways in which local conditions and the priorities of local communities can best be accommodated is by devolving some of the responsibility for planning development onto the communities themselves. This has been the key feature of the participatory approaches to development developed over the last decade. The operative principle is that no one knows what the problems and needs of a particular community are better than the community itself. If they are allowed to plan their own development, many of the complex and unpredictable problems related to the social context of development will be overcome by the people most concerned, those who are being “developed”.
This does not eliminate the role of “outsiders” in development. There are usually good reasons why some communities are less developed than others, and outside agencies have a vital role in enabling communities to overcome those obstacles. This might mean suggesting new technology, helping people to obtain it and training people to use it. It might mean simply starting people off thinking about a particular issue and then leaving them to resolve the problem themselves.
However, if local communities are to play a leading role in their own development, development agencies have to come up with different forms of intervention to those used traditionally to design development activities. Rapid Appraisal developed mainly in response to this need for a different approach to development interventions by outsiders in local communities, particularly in rural areas of less developed countries.
What is now called “Rapid Appraisal”, “Rapid Rural Appraisal” or RRA is the result of the pooling of the experience and ideas of many different people working in different areas all over the world. This practical element in Rapid Appraisal needs to be emphasised. It was not “invented” on the basis of certain principles but was gradually put together from people's experience of development in the field. As a result, at its best, it aims at reconciling two, often conflicting, sets of requirements : the needs of the people in poor (often rural) communities in less developed countries and the requirements of development agencies.
It is difficult to say exactly what circumstances drove different people in different places to develop the approaches and techniques which have subsequently been put together and called “Rapid Appraisal”. However, there seem to be two main issues which Rapid Appraisal has tried to address.
Planners and the “targets” of planning
Firstly, as outlined above, there is the issue of the relationship between the people planning development activities and those who are the “targets” of development activities. In “traditional” approaches to development, those responsible for planning are often subject to a series of influences or biases. These affect the way they interpret the situation in the field and the way they design activities but they all are unaware of the real needs and problems of the communities who will be affected.
“Organization” bias
Planners are usually members of organizations. The activities of organizations, by definition, are structured and often planned far in advance. Most organizations have targets to fulfil, deadlines to meet, guidelines concerning what they should do and how they should do it. Usually, these factors have nothing to do with the conditions occurring in the individual communities in which that organization may be working. However they usually have a decisive influence on how activities are planned. Activities will be moulded to fit the necessities of the organization or programme rather than to meet the needs of the community.
“Visibility” bias
A variety of factors can cause planners to direct their activities towards some parts of the community, which may not necessarily be those most in need or those whom it was originally intended to reach. The people whom planners see and thus come to regard as representing the community can be influenced and biased in many ways. When planners visit the area, usually under acute time pressure, they may only meet “representatives” of the community or local elites who will present their interests rather than the community's. They will often have contact only with those near to main roads and thoroughfares because they do not have time (or do not want to take the trouble) to get off the main roads and meet the people living in remoter parts of the community. Very often these more “visible” members of the community will also be the wealthiest and the least in need of any kind of assistance. Even when planners do meet local people and talk to them, they may limit their discussions to the subjects that interest them and leave little space for local people to express their own views and talk about what is important for them. Planners tend to be over-whelmingly male in most less developed countries; they often talk only to other men and take only men's needs into account.
“Project” bias
Planners from a particular organization will inevitably try to identify and plan activities which they can do and activities which will be easy to implement as a “project”. Outside organizations are usually interested in a well-defined activity with a beginning and an end, and measurable outputs which can be illustrated in a neat report which will justify the time, effort and money spent. These requirements will often be quite at odds with the communities' requirements. Many of the critical problems encountered in poor rural communities cannot be tackled by strictly time-bound “projects” but require open-ended and long-term commitment from agencies and a flexible approach to planning.
The Rapid Appraisal approach tries to counteract these biases in the development planning process. In some cases, the biases can be at least minimised. Others are an integral part of the relationship between planners and the those being planned for, and Rapid Appraisal addresses them by making them explicit and being aware of their possible influence as much as possible.
Compromises
To really change the relationship between development planners and those affected by their plans would require a profound shift in the way development agencies are conceived. A genuinely “participatory” approach to development would require that agencies commence working with no set programme in terms of time or the type of intervention they are to carry out. All these elements would have to come from the people themselves rather than from the agency. An agency which cannot plan what it is going to do ahead of time or how long it is going to spend doing it would have great difficulty undertaking any kind of financial planning.
These factors make it extremely difficult for an “organization” to operate in a participatory fashion and still call itself an “organization”. Almost by definition, organizations have to be planned.
This fundamental problem seems to have spurred Rapid Appraisal: it motivated most of the development workers who first undertook to develop the methods. It is never stated explicitly in these terms but all show an underlying concern both to make their activities more participatory and to get them to fit into the organizational framework of a development agency and its projects. This means making a lot of compromises.
The “rapidity” of Rapid Appraisal results in just one of these compromises. It sacrifices statistical “validity” for the sake of having up-to-date findings which are immediately usable for development work. If an appraisal were to try to cover a statistically valid sample in a community this would mean spending too much time and generating too much data whereas a Rapid Appraisal concentrates on getting an in-depth understanding in as short a time as possible.
This leads to another important compromise, that of breadth of coverage for depth of coverage. The principle here is that going for a broader coverage during an appraisal may give a more statistically satisfying result but it may still be wrong because the findings are general and relatively superficial. A more selective coverage which tries to cover a few representative categories of people or households can allow for more time on each informant and a more in-depth picture from those people.
Just as breadth of coverage may have to be sacrificed for depth of understanding, quantitative information may have to be sacrificed in order to get qualitatively better results. This does not mean dispensing completely with quantitative measurements which are a vital part of any appraisal. However, quantitative measurement does not assume the central role it would in a detailed survey. Instead, a few representative measurements might be used for indicators. Where it is critical to know exact numbers, these can be sought out, but only where really necessary.
Working along similar principles, most Rapid Appraisals make use of particular information, as contained in case studies and anecdotes provided by local people, to make up for the lack of a general picture which would be obtained from a structured survey conducted with a wider sample of respondents.
These compromises have all been made by the practitioners of Rapid Appraisal with full awareness of the limitations they produce in terms of having appraisal findings which are statistically “sound”. However, long and bitter experience by many development practitioners seems to indicate that statistical validity in itself is an academic goal which can serve certain well-defined purposes but should not be pursued as an end in itself. For many purposes, and particularly for working with the rural communities which are the targets of most development activities, an in-depth understanding of how people understand their own conditions is much more important than an objective, quantitative analysis using categories established by “outsiders”.
Rapid Appraisal has been interpreted in many different ways and used in many different settings. However, most Rapid Appraisals have certain features in common.
As mentioned above, an important element in any Rapid Appraisal is the participation of local people. This can take place in various ways and with a varying degree of emphasis. The “minimum” participation would involve the use of communication techniques which allow local people to express their views clearly and so contribute to the appraisal's findings. A more substantial level of participation would occur where meetings or group discussions are held to analyze local conditions and formulate plans for future action.
“Optimal ignorance”
Also as mentioned above, most Rapid Appraisals will limit the amount of information collected by focusing on particular areas which seem to be important. At the same time, the relatively open structure of the appraisal will allow important aspects or elements which may be outside the direct focus of the appraisal to be included if they are seen to be relevant. Appraisal teams have to be aware of their own limitations in terms of time and resources to be able to decide when they have collected enough information and what information they will not be able to collect but which might be required in the future.
Learning from local people
Rapid Appraisal tries to establish a different type of relationship between local people and outsiders. An important part of that relationship depends on outsiders' willingness to learn from local people and accept that their knowledge of local conditions is a vital contribution to the appraisal findings.
Learning from many points of view
Rapid Appraisals try to bring together people from different disciplines and professional backgrounds, from different institutions and from different levels of decision-making in order to take into account as many different sets of priorities as possible. Just as important is the inclusion of the points of view of local people themselves. All this will contribute to forming a genuinely holistic picture of local conditions.
Flexibility and adaptability
In order for Rapid Appraisal to be useful as a development tool it has to be adaptable to the many different circumstances in which development work takes place. To satisfy this requirement Rapid Appraisal has developed as a flexible set of tools and techniques which can be chosen from and adapted as required by development workers.
Rapid Appraisal is also “iterative” meaning that it reviews its findings as it goes along and incorporates learning into the planning of the appraisal itself. As the team finds out about local conditions it can change the emphasis of further discussions with the community or investigations in the field. This is done through the use of repeated “workshops” involving team members and local people.
Use of communication tools
Rapid Appraisal is largely made up of a selection of tools which help local people and an outside team to communicate and get their ideas across. These tools make use of diagrams and schematic representations as well as simple activities and games. The selection of tools used in Rapid Appraisal is constantly expanding as people try out different techniques.
Avoiding biases
As mentioned above, Rapid Appraisal tries to avoid biases. Most of the biases, which are inherent in any outside team visiting an area, are avoided by making them explicit and constantly reviewing findings to see where they might have been affected by such biases. Other biases can be minimized by using different specific techniques.
Triangulation is a technique which compensates for the lack of statistical sampling in Rapid Appraisal. It involves getting three different team members to use three different techniques to investigate the same topic from three different sources or respondents.
Mapping of the community can be used to ensure that the team covers all sections of the people in the area and not just those who are most accessible. Where time permits, small random samples of households or people can be taken for interviews on a specific subject or issue.
The composition of the team carrying out the appraisal also plays an important role in counteracting possible biases. This can be achieved by making sure that different disciplines, administrative levels and perhaps most importantly, genders, are represented on the team. Having a balance between men and women on an appraisal team is crucial in many countries if the appraisal is to take into account the particular conditions of women and come up with recommendations which will reach women as well as men.
Systematic and intensive
Rapid Appraisal is semi-structured but systematic in order to economise on time and costs and also to make sure that the most ground is covered within the time available. It is also very intensive, involving full-time commitment by all the people involved.
Most Rapid Appraisals have most of the features listed above, although they may place different emphases on different features. A typical example might be a Rapid Appraisal which emphasises the participatory planning element rather than the collection of information on the community.
Rapid Appraisal has been incorporated in many different ways into the planning process. Four principal types of Rapid Appraisal can be identified from experience to date.
A majority of Rapid Appraisals to date have probably taken place during the initial phases of activities and have aimed at finding out about an area or a community or a particular activity and identifying possible courses of action for the future. This type of activity has generally been referred to as an “exploratory” Rapid Appraisal.
Topical
Another important use of Rapid Appraisal has been to investigate more specific topics or problems in areas where development programmes are already in progress. These “topical” appraisals are often closely integrated into the on-going work of a project or programme and are used as a highly focused tool to investigate problems as they arise.
Monitoring and evaluation
Rapid Appraisals can also be worked into the project cycle as a means for routine monitoring and eventual evaluation of activities. The particular advantage of Rapid Appraisal for this purpose is that it can take full account of local people's views on project activities.
iv. Participatory
Participatory appraisals are those which place particular emphasis on the elements in Rapid Appraisal which encourage the role of the local community in analyzing their conditions and planning solutions. All appraisals should be participatory but some will make this the main focus of the activity.
Rapid Appraisal was identified by ALCOM as a possible approach for obtaining an understanding of the widely differing social and physical contexts of small water bodies in Southern Africa. In addition, it was hoped to come up with appropriate project activities for improving the fisheries on small water bodies, where this proved to be appropriate and in tune with the priorities of local communities.
The feasibility of using Rapid Appraisal was based on the following considerations :
The limitations in size of small water bodies and the communities which use them would make them well-suited to a Rapid Appraisal approach. The system of which a small water body is part would generally extend only as far as the catchment area with some possible marketing links further afield. Rapid Appraisal seemed appropriate for investigating such relatively limited systems quickly and efficiently.
Small water bodies are used for many purposes
Most water bodies are used for a wide variety of purposes of which fisheries is generally not a priority. However, all these activities affect one another and interventions on one would inevitably have an impact on others. Therefore a holistic approach which would view the complexities of the situation was required.
Small water bodies are very diverse
The size and diversity of small water bodies mean that it is difficult to justify the time (and expense) required to undertake a formal survey. In the Zimbabwean context, covering even the smallest meaningful sample of small water bodies would have been a gargantuan task. In addition, there would be no guarantee that the findings of such a sample survey would have any relevance in any other locations.
Rapid Appraisal had also been utilised in a limited fashion during the course of other ALCOM activities in Zambia. These appraisals were topical in that they focused on particular key questions which had arisen during the course of work in an aquaculture extension sub-project. These experiments with the Rapid Appraisal approach were generally positive and generated interest in the possibility of more extensive use of Rapid Appraisal for planning the future activities of ALCOM.
