Session Plan

Session 4

Participatory Analysis

and Priority Setting

with the Community

Rationale

Rather than using the term needs assessment for the first phase of a

community development project cycle, we talk about  analyzing the

situation  to reinforce that the analysis includes much more than

finding out what the needs or problems are. It includes all of the

activities the community might use to analyze their current reality,

past projects, as well as what they want in the future. The analysis

would also involve the identification of both assets and deficits in

order to determine how a potential project might fit into the com 

munity's current state of being. Once community members have

thoroughly analyzed their situation, then they are ready to move into

the second phase of community development setting priorities and

creating a vision of where they want to go.

Many Volunteers will have been introduced to Participatory Analysis

for Community Action (PACA) or Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)

during pre service or in service training. Hopefully, they will have

already tried some of the PACA and PRA tools such as community

mapping, seasonal calendars, and ranking matrices with their com 

munities. In this session, participants look at several of these parti 

cipatory tools in terms of the types of information the tools provide

to the community, as well as to the Volunteer and Counterpart. The

session discussions also help participants understand how the

information collected about the community is then used to set

priorities and formulate actual projects.

Time

1 hour, 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on optional activities

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