Thus they take the 'grass roots' or 'bottom up ' approach. ActionAids approach is about a reversal in learning. It is impossible to learn the correct and appropriate techniques needed to help develop and improve the rural area through a developed countries educational attainments, urban status and modern language. If this was practised the methods and theories would be wrong and inappropriate. The wrong areas of population would be targeted and modern ideas, techniques and knowledge would be used which would not meet the needs of the locals. New equipment would need to be imported at inaffordable prices and new ways of survival learned which they would not be able to relate to. Thus the reversal in learning takes over. The only true way to be able to develop a rural area is for the field worker to penetrate the community, observe, listen and digest what they see and hear. Then using this first hand, on site information, appropriate techniques can be developed which can be easily incorporated in to the rural persons life. The techniques must be relevant to their everyday living, no drastic changes to their lives can happen and finally they must be effective and simple enough so that the person involved understands why these changes must be made and how they will benefit them, for example it is impossible to tell an African tribe to use latrines without explaining the reasons why and the advantages of them. Once in the RDA the ActionAid worker does not distance themselves from the indigenous population by transporting their way of life. Instead they assimilate themselves into the community. This has two advantages, firstly it allows the ActionAid worker to be able to see and understand the community, and secondly it prevents a hierarchy, which could restrict the 'learning from below' process. ActionAid has devised five forms to allow this learning process to take place.
Firstly the ActionAid worker sits, learns and listens. This helps to create and set a relaxed atmosphere where as much information can be communicated between the two people. Because of the relaxed unstructured attitude taken, it means the researcher will often gain information he would never have thought of getting. But not only does it benefit the researcher, but also the indigenous people involved. It acts as a learning process for them as they are able to hear other peoples ideas and techniques.
Secondly the ActionAid researcher aims to learn from the poorest and create solutions that can be used by the poorest. A classic example here is health and nutrition. It is no good teaching the poorest the health and nutritional techniques of the less poor as these will be inappropriate and inadequate and generally speaking it is unlikely that the poorest will be able to use the techniques which apply to the less poor.
Thirdly it is necessary to learn the indigenous peoples technical knowledge. For this the researcher makes a glossary of local terms to increase their knowledge of the language and local beliefs, and then uses this glossary to help in projects such as education and health.
Fourthly this method stresses the importance of joint research and development. Although it is true that areas of research and development must be carried out in a laboratory, it is also true to say that much must be carried out in the field with the farmers, who must be recognised as professionals and colleagues. Often research carried out in the laboratory has biases or exaggerations or simplifications, thus the results prove to be inadequate and distorted. Often the framers know best as they have the most superior knowledge on climate, soil water and local farming techniques. By including farmers in research and development often discards the need for expensive on-farm trials. This technique was practised in Sierra Leone under the supervision of ActionAid, where farmers developed their own research techniques. This proved beneficial because not only could the farmers knowledge be incorporated into the research, but from the results he could learn and understand.
Finally, ActionAid have devised an approach which is one of
learning by working. Here the worker enhances their knowledge and understanding of the indigenous people by working with them thus seeing the problems that face them.
These five approaches help and encourage those from the developed world to learn from those of the developing. Thus with their new knowledge they can use their skills and influences to devise programmes to help the needy areas. But above all it is a mutual learning experience for both involved- by the interaction between the two groups, both draw knowledge and learn from one another.
Alongside this information received by the field researchers, more specific data is received about the RDA in particular and then used within the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). This is the principle methodological approach used by ActionAid and it is based on Robert Chambers' Rapid Rural Appraisal. The PRA collects data such as village maps; transects showing how water, crops and landuse varies across the village; seasonal calendars showing how activities vary across the seasons and trend lines. It then looks at productivity, sustainabilty and stability of the area. By combining this more specific, formal data with the less formal data mentioned earlier, it is possible to find solutions to the problems that the community identifies as most severe and important. Once the solutions have been identified and drawn up they are presented to the community at a level appropriate to them- this is usually in the form of visual data. ActionAid recognises that by including everyone in the discussions throughout the project means that not only will the majority of ideas be accounted for but also morale will high. Once the solutions have been drawn up and shown, the community takes over and ensures its continuity. At this stage ActionAid are still available to supervise and help sought out problems where necessary, as it is unlikely that there will be no problems.
PRA's began in Africa in 1988, targeting there work in Kenya and in 1991-2 it went into The Gambia. Originally here the PRA was aimed at two communities- the Dingaraay community with 48 households and the Ndawen community 3km away. Both were poor and vulnerable.
The first task was data collection. The PRA team originally went into the community to enable all involved to feel at ease and then they asked the village leader, the Alkalo, to organise the data collection involving the indigenous people. This took the form of village sketch and transect maps; temporal information representing major events that have taken place, a trend line showing their fear of the decreasing rainfall and highlighting the increase in population but the decrease in land productivity (although they recognised this they did not have a solution) and seasonal calendars showing actions over the different seasons, for example, sowing, harvesting, times of hunger and times to repair the compound, and finally institutional information. Here each institution gives information on there aims and objectives, needs and achievements and then they are ranked against each other.
Once the data was collected it was analysed by the PRA team. They drew up a table showing the problems, causes and possible solutions. Once done it was shown to the two communities, who amended it and sent it back to the PRA team where these amendments were accounted.
Now the PRA process was owned by the leaders of the different groups and the recognised problems were ranked in order of importance , of which water was the first. ActionAid did not then leave and assume that the village could cope with the changes that had to be made. Instead they sent in trained staff to help with education, health, agriculture and well rehabilitation. To enable the community to carry out there projects there was an assessment on each households wealth, the skills of the people and their access to resources. The Community Action Plan (CAP) was then drawn up and the communities could begin work. ActionAid oversaw the work to help where problems arose as it would be impossible to expect them to be able to carry out the work effectively independently of ActionAid.
As was mentioned earlier the four principle aims of ActionAid are to improve the health of the people; create better educational opportunities for both males and females; to increase agricultural production, reduce the chances of famine and improve farming techniques; and finally help generate income, introduce credit and encourage savings. ActionAid does not only have PRA areas, it does also help individual projects in either countries or villages (RDA). Health is an important topic and many schemes have been set up in various places to help the individual at their own level. In Ecuador for example, child-care centres have been set up in the majority of RDA's, not only are these to improve the education of the children but they also improve the nutritional levels as more than 70% of the children are malnourished. Here they have set up vegetable gardens, this allows the parents to understand the importance of nutrients and vitamins and will encourage them to grew their own vegetables. In El Salvador, ActionAid has helped with community health, targeting areas outside state government ones. It has funded health centres and explained methods of disease prevention to the people. ActionAid has bought in medicines but at the same time it has helped to develop traditional remedies, it has introduced immunisation programmes and shown how to easily purify water. Finally in Bangladesh one of the main problems leading to poor health is the fact that very few people have easy access to clean water. So far ActionAid has sunk 1,000 wells in various areas providing clean water for over 200,000 people. Alongside this there have been sanitation programmes to overall improve peoples health.
Agricultural problems can lead to health problems thus unless both are targeted the vicious circle will continue. Recently Action Aid has begun work in Vietnam with help and back up from the government. Here it has tried to improve farming techniques to improve the yield. They have done this through training the farmers at their own level to ensure it is appropriate and also through demonstrations.
To be able to improve peoples lives in the long run they need to improve their education. In Malawi illiteracy rates are very high and school attendance rates are low. To help improve both these problems ActionAid has built new classrooms and houses for the teachers, as well as increase the number of lessons for adults. In Peru literacy rates are lower than in Bangladesh, but the literacy numbers among women are low, so ActionAid has targeted this area, forming classes for women that are especially designed to fit in with their house-hold chores.
Finally ActionAid hope to be able to generate income and encourage savings to improve the overall wealth of the people. An income generation scheme can be found in El Salvador. Here ActionAid provide credit and improved technology to help the farmer be able to buy as much seed as he needs and also to increase productivity. ActionAid has also provided hens and hen-houses and helped produce milk and beef from previously under-used areas, thus creating an income for the people. In Kenya credit and savings schemes have been set up, as only by breaking the cycle of debt can peoples quality of life improve. It provides a place where people can put their savings and also allows them to buy items such as seed on credit and pay when they are able to afford it.
In many cases the programmes are more specifically targeted at the women, especially in Africa where the women are the backbone of society. It aims to lessen the burden of women and to ensure that projects are productive as possible. Two main ways of doing this are by improving their agricultural methods and the supply of water, this is because many women spend a large percentage of the day collecting water. Ideally the status of women needs to improve, as presently in Africa it is low. The assume responsibility for most chores but are given little credit or independence.
To conclude therefore, ActionAid plays a vital role in improving the quality of life in a large number of developing countries. It makes an appraisal of rural areas and from this it creates a number of Rural Development Areas where it targets its work- mainly in the field of agriculture, health and education. Although it is obviously necessary to incorporate the priorities of the government as ActionAid has often been asked to help, their principal underlying methodology is one of looking at the needs of the individual and their village. More specifically they discover from the villagers involved what they see their needs to be and from this devise programmes to fit in with these.
ActionAid are also keen to provide the villages with 'user-friendly' solutions ie/ ones which the indigenous population understand, can afford, can design or make for themselves where appropriate and above all can relate to.
Thus it is possible to conclude that although ActionAid is sensitive to the needs of the government they are more concerned with the needs of the individual.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. CHAMBERS (1983) "Rural Development- Putting the Last First" Longman Group Ltd.
Introduction To ActionAid (Third draft)
Individual countries factsheets compiled by ActionAid
ActionAid in Bangladesh booklet
"Sustaining Development through Community Mobilisation- A case study of Participatory Rural Appraisal in The Gambia" Writen by and for ActionAid
"Common Cause" The ActionAid quarterly report (various dates)
"ActionAid Annual Review 1992-93"
Various leaflets writen by ActionAid
