Module 4.2. Applicable Tools

Mapping power, resources and directions will support communities in locally led action.

Module 4.2 presents methods for:

This module will help users:

• explain why power mapping is a useful first step in action planning
• conduct a resource mapping exercise to complement a power map
• develop a project roadmap based on a collective vision

What is power mapping?

These characteristics can be physical (e.g., the town market, a major river, a neighborhood) or conceptual (e.g., centres of power, interpersonal norms, group identities).

This mapping process focuses on identifying the key social, cultural, and power dynamics within a community. It draws on the diverse knowledge and perspectives of community members to map the people, places, and norms that shape the local social and political landscape. The exercise also strengthens conflict sensitivity by encouraging reflection on which groups have cooperative relationships and which may have histories of tension or conflict that could complicate collaboration. In addition, it helps assess the relative influence and power of different segments of the community. Together, these insights can inform more strategic efforts to foster collective action in addressing local climate, peace, and security challenges.

Why create a power map?

A map illustrating social, cultural, and power characteristics of your community will help you understand how people interact within your community – and how your team should engage with your community. It builds a holistic and shared understanding of your community’s social and political fabric.

Community mapping is also important for identifying what people, places, and power dynamics your team must keep in mind when planning future steps of your project. Who will be early allies to your efforts? Where are the power or cultural centres you should go to when promoting your project and seeking supporters? Are there any norms or intergroup dynamics that will affect how and with whom you engage?

Additionally, the first step in a community environmental action planning process is bringing your community together. This means not only inviting community members to a meeting, but also establishing shared knowledge, vision, commitment, and trust. People get to know one another and start to build a shared commitment to solving shared problems.

After a community mapping process, you will have laid the groundwork for your community to smoothly transition into dialogue, problem analysis, capacity development, and, ultimately, action. Mapping convenes stakeholders, engaging with them and building their buy-in. Convening, engaging, and building buy-in are critical prerequisites to creating solutions and taking action as a community.

What are some limitations of power mapping?

Community maps provide a snapshot of a given community at a given time. Social, cultural, and power dynamics change over time – including over the course of a community environmental action planning process! In the future, when using the map you’ve created, you should ask yourselves whether it has experienced any changes. You should remind your community of this and dedicate time to make occasional but routine updates.

The size, detail, and (re)usability of your map will be determined by what you draw your map on. If you draw it on a standard-sized sheet of paper, it likely won’t fit many details. If you draw it on the ground, you’ll have near limitless space for details, but saving and sharing the map may prove difficult. If you draw it on the computer, you may need to find a way to print it out so people without a computer can access it.

What is resource mapping?

This activity creates a map of your community’s geography, natural resources, neighborhoods, and other important features. You will surface community member’s diverse knowledge and perspectives on what resources and services are available in their community. You will also start to understand how different parts of the community are physically exposed more to climate, peace, and security risks. This knowledge will in turn enable you to identify potential future issues and opportunities to leverage community resources to solve them.

Why CREATE A resource map?

A community resource and issue map is useful for beginning to understand a community. Namely, it builds a shared understanding of the community’s geography (i.e., what are the main physical features – bridges, roads, buildings, terrain, field systems?), social features (i.e.., how many people live there? What ethnic groups live there?), environmental features (i.e., what natural resources are available? What is the quality and quantity of those natural resources?), and any other features your group deems relevant.

Community resource and issue mapping is also important for identifying what natural resources and environmental services are available to whom, who uses them, how they use them, and what they use them for. For example, what resources and services are available to women? Which are available to men?

Additionally, the first step in a community environmental action planning process is bringing your community together. This means not only inviting community members to a meeting, but also establishing shared knowledge, vision, commitment, and trust. Community resource and issue mapping is a task people in your community complete together. In doing so, they get to know one another and start to build a shared commitment to solving shared problems.

After a community resource and issue mapping process, you will have laid the groundwork for your community to smoothly transition into dialogue, problem analysis, capacity development, and, ultimately, action. Asset and issue mapping convenes stakeholders, engaging with them and building their buy-in. Convening, engaging, and building buy-in are critical prerequisites to creating solutions and taking action as a community.

What are some limitations of resource mapping?

Asset and issue maps provide a snapshot of a given community at a given time. Community resources and issues change over time – including over the course of a community environmental action planning process! In the future, when using the map you’ve created, you should ask yourselves whether it has experienced any changes. You should remind your community of this and dedicate time to make occasional but routine updates.

The size, detail, and (re)usability of your map will be determined by what you draw your map on. If you draw it on a standard-sized sheet of paper, it likely won’t fit many details. If you draw it on the ground, you’ll have near limitless space for details, but saving and sharing the map may prove difficult. If you draw it on the computer, you may need to find a way to print it out so people without a computer can access it.

What is A Project Roadmap?

A project roadmap provides the big-picture overview of what an intervention will do and who will be involved. Where a Gantt chart is task-specific and includes particular details relevant to their accomplishment, a project roadmap is about quickly summarising and communicating the key stages of a potential solution.

There are a number of ways to present project roadmaps. Thinking of them as a cross between a timeline (which may or may not include specific dates) and a directional route may be helpful. A project roadmap should visually showcase key activities, and how they will build on each other to get to the desired destination. The route (i.e., the order of activities) will depend on their urgency, inter-activity dependencies, resource and personnel availability, and other factors (metaphorically, for example, a trip to the gas station may not be particularly scenic, but is going to be a necessary stop during a long journey – large-scale projects may well require 2-3 gas station detours).

Why CREATE A Project Roadmap?

A roadmap provides an easy-to-read summary of the project and can be especially useful for external communications.

The process of creating a project roadmap is a useful tool for transitioning between programme design and project implementation, as having to simplistically represent the order of project activities and describe the intended destination can help ensure that everyone involved in the project has a shared understanding of its trajectory.

Throughout the implementation of project activities, the roadmap can serve as a grounding tool and provide direction in the event of roadblocks. If a particular activity looks like it is being ‘derailed’ (e.g., taking longer than expected, having to be completed with fewer resources than promised, or moving forward without the participation of a key actor), the project roadmap can be a useful framework for considering what else might need to change. Responses to project roadblocks might involve trying to get back to the planned route as quickly as possible, or finding a new trajectory to the same final destination.

What are some limitations of A Project Roadmap?

It is difficult to foresee the entirety of a project. Reshaping conflict contexts and environmental management, by its very nature, involves creating new territory – and mapping territory that doesn’t yet exist is fundamentally a speculative exercise. A roadmap is informed by experience and expertise, but involves assumptions about activity outcomes and cause-and-effect relationships that are difficult to fully predict. It is important to understand that additional ‘pitstops’ may need to be built into the project.

A roadmap is a guide, not an absolute manifesto. Project implementation requires flexibility. Roadmaps are useful tools, but being able to re-route – and communicate the change of direction to everyone involved – is equally important.

Remember: A map is not the territory, and a route is not the journey.