BASELINE SURVEY & PARTICIPATORY RURAL APPRAISAL (PRA)

Baseline Survey and PRA exercises are conducted in the target rural area for creating database for analysis and development of rural development project.

Baseline is the clearly defined starting point from where the implementation of rural development programme begins, improvement in the area is judged, or comparison is done. So baseline survey means analysis of current situation to identify the starting points for a program or project and assess the quantum of work done with respect to the objectives, methodology and time schedule. It gives a picture of the situation on ground and results can then be compared with a follow-up assessment towards the end of the project, in order to comprehend the effects that the programme has had on the target population. As well as measuring impact, baselines can fulfill a number of other purposes:

1. They provide useful data on the extent and type of problem faced.
2. They help in setting realistic and achievable goals.
3. They engage other stakeholders in the development process, by involving the private sector, businesses, and widely disseminating baseline results.

The stages involved in a baseline study are as follows:

1. Rationale and objectives
2. Description of the research location/geographical context
3. Methodology of the survey
4. Results
5. Conclusions and Recommendations

1. Rationale and objectives:

This section must contain a clear presentation of the issues surrounding the research and its objectives, as well as specific questions which will be dealt with during the survey.

2. Description of the research location/geographical context

This section contains the criteria used for selecting the location as well as gathering general information on the study population. Understanding the characteristics of the subjects on which the study is to be done is very important.

3. Methodology of the study

This section must provide a detailed outline of the overall study and describe the design of the tools, the sampling strategies (including the sizes of the samples) and the methods used for collecting the data. It is essential to explain and justify the use of the research specifications and the methods chosen and also to discuss all the problems encountered.

• Approach to be used shall be both Quantitative and Qualitative: Quantitative data measures the situation in numeric terms. It often uses closed-ended questions with limited potential responses, and engages various statistical techniques to detect significant differences between different groups of respondents. It often needs large samples, weighted to represent the population that the study is interested in. Qualitative data seeks to explain the context, perceptions and quality of a particular experience or condition. Data collection methods employ a more participatory approach through the use of open-ended questions that allow respondents to expand on their initial answers and lead the discussion towards issues that they find important. Samples tend to be smaller. Generally, both qualitative and quantitative data are required for a baseline. Quantitative data measures the extent of an issue, and provide a simple comprehension of how it has changed. Qualitative data will supplement this by providing insights from partners, recipient and employees, addressing the causes, sustainability, and impact of this change. This explains how and why things occur – which is particularly useful when addressing the question of acknowledgment, whether your programme is responsible for the change that has occurs.
• Creation/development of data gathering tools, creating the questionnaires and standardizing them so that their layout must facilitate data gathering, the questionnaire must be easy to follow and the responses must be easily accessible for coding and data capture. Data gathering techniques used shall be Individual interview, Group discussion/focus group, Secondary data reviews, community workshops, semi structured interview with key informants, Administrative authority questionnaire, participant observations and direct & indirect observations.
• Drawing up an analysis plan that must make provision for tabulating the variables chosen in the questionnaire. The plan must take strict account of the expected results of the project and their pointers. In addition, the plan will help when carrying out various analyses with the different variables (knowledge, attitudes and practices).

4. Results

The results must provide detailed responses to the research questions set out in the introduction. The results of all the activities relating to data gathering must be used to respond to each research question (i.e. the data should be triangulated).

5. Conclusions and recommendations

In this section, the report returns to the research objectives set out in the introduction. What is the relevance of the results of the study for the programme activities? What recommendations can the researcher make in terms of adopting concrete measures?

Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) is a set of participatory and largely visual techniques for assessing group and society resources, recognize and prioritizing problems and appraising strategies for solving them. It is a planning tactic in which a local community (with or without the assistance of outsiders) studies an issue that concerns the population, main concern problems, estimate options for solving the problem(s) and comes up with a Community Action Plan to address the concerns that have been raised.

PRA is particularly concerned that the multiple perspectives that exist in any community are represented in the analysis and that the community itself takes the lead in evaluating its situation and finding explanation. Outsiders may contribute as facilitators or in providing technical information but they should not 'take charge' of the process.

In PRA, a number of different tools are used to gather and analyze information. These tools encourage contribution, make it easier for people to state their views and help to organize information in a way that makes it more useful and more accessible to the group that is trying to analyze a given situation. 

Some components of PRA which make it well-suited as a learning and problem-solving tool for the rural poor are:

• It give confidence to group participation and discussion
• The information to be processed is gathered by group members themselves
• It is presented in very visual form, typically out in the open and on the ground, using pictures, signs and locally available resources
• Once displayed, the information is “transparent rather than hidden” - all members can remark on it, revise it and disapprove of it. This assists in cross-checking and verifying collected data.

PRA supports the direct participation of communities, with rural community themselves becoming the main investigators and analysts. Rural people set the priorities; verify needs; select and train community workers; collect, document, and analyze data; and plan and implement solutions based on their conclusion. Actions stemming from this research tend to serve the local group of people. Outsiders are there to facilitate the process but do not direct it. PRA uses group moving picture and exercises to make possible information giving out, study, and action among stakeholders.

PRA is an exercise in communication and transfer of knowledge. Despite the consequences of whether it is carried out as part of project identification or appraisal or as part of country economic and sector work, the learning and teamwork spirit of PRA requires clear procedures. For that reason, a series of open meetings (an initial open meeting, final meeting, and follow-up meeting) generally frame the sequence of PRA activities. Usual PRA activities involve a team of people working for two to three weeks on workshop planning, analyses, and fieldwork.

Hundreds of participatory techniques and tools have been described in a variety of books and newsletter, or trained at training courses around the world. These method can be divided into four grouping:

• Group dynamics, e.g. education contracts, role reversals, advice sessions
• Sampling, e.g. transect walks, wealth ranking, community mapping
• Interviewing, e.g. focus group planning, semi-structured meeting, triangulation
• Visualization e.g. venn diagrams, environment scoring, timelines

To ensure that people are not excluded from involvement, these techniques avoid script wherever possible, relying instead on the tools of oral announcement like pictures, symbols, physical objects and group remembrance. Efforts are made in various projects, however, to build a bridge to proper literacy; for example by teaching people how to sign their names or recognize their signatures.

Based on the data collected from baseline survey and PRA exercise, a detailed analysis is done to understand the target rural area, its geography, demographics, infrastructure, various religions and castes, dominant cultures and related behaviors, natural resources available and potential usage for livelihood enhancement, agriculture crops and productivity, soil profile, nutritional level of children and women, literacy level. We also get to know comprehend the problems (common as well as area specific) of rural area and possible solutions suggested by the community itself. Based on the analysis of this data, we develop suitable interventions for rural development. The interventions are either short term (less than a year) or long term (1-10 years).

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