Module 4.3. Participatory Methods

Power theory reminds us that collective action can create an impact greater than the sum of individual actions, motivating people with common interests to come together and achieve shared goals.

Module 4.3 discusses facilitation strategies for:

This module will help users:

• engage community members in participatory mapping analysis
• align project expectations across diverse actors
• confirm that the chosen intervention is the most appropriate to pursue

Creating maps as a group will add nuance, and can continue the relationship-building process.

Activities like a transect walk can be particularly effective in forging connections.

If a person or group of people are dominating the activity (e.g., speaking so much that others have difficulty providing their input), you will need to take action to ensure more equal participation. Unequal participation can stifle community buy-in, establish unhealthy internal group dynamics, and lead to biased (i.e., inaccurate) resource and issue maps. For best practices on group facilitation, please see the accompanying facilitation toolbox.

Building from the expectation management undertaken during initial community mobilisation, it is important at this stage to align expectations across the diverse groups involved in locally led action. This requires (1) open communication, (2) realistic goals and (3) participant engagement. It should not be viewed as a one-way transfer of information, but rather as a collaborative dialogue in which the full group shares their understandings and assumptions about the interventions.

Now that a specific intervention has been determined, ensuring that everyone involved has a clear understanding of what the project will actually entail and what they will (and won’t) get out of it is important.

Solution identification involves basic checks for viability, using tools such as feasibility matrices and scenario forecasting. It is important to bear in mind that more detailed action planning using the tools above may uncover unforeseen barriers. If this occurs, the group should return to solution identification tools with the additional knowledge, in order to determine a suitable alternative. (Remember that investing time to develop a theory of change and corresponding project roadmap, only to discover that an intended intervention doesn’t align with the goals as well as the group might have thought, is far better than wasting even more resources actively implementing an ineffective solution!)

If shared visioning and participatory mapping confirm that the identified intervention is appropriate and possible, then the project roadmap should be collectively committed to, and the group should proceed to active work through programme implementation.