Nepal pva workshop report chitwan november 2k5 final

PPaarrttiicciippaattoorryy VVuullnneerraabbiilliittyy AAnnaallyyssiiss

November 14-19, 2005 The Global Hotel

Bharatpur, Chitwan Nepal

EEmmeerrggeennccyy && DDiissaasstteerr MMaannaaggeemmeenntt TThheemmee AAccttiioonnAAiidd NNeeppaall

HHuummaann SSeeccuurriittyy && GGoovveerrnnaannccee TTeeaamm KKaatthhmmaanndduu

Prepared By Shyam Sundar Jnavaly

AAN CRC Bharatpur Dhruba Raj Gautam

DPNet Nepal Kathmandu

ActionAid Nepal November 2005

Bharatpur, Chitwan

ACTIONAID Nepal GPO Box 6257 Kathmandu Nepal Tel: 977 (1) 7736477, 4410929, 4419115 Fax: 977 (1) 4419718 E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © ACTIONAID Nepal 2005

ACTIONAID Nepal reserves all rights of ownership of the original material in this Report, but readers are free to make use of it for non-commercial purposes in the course of development work. ACTIONAID Nepal asks, however, that proper acknowledgement be given whenever the Report is so used, and that a copy of any document prepared with the assistance of original material quoted from this Report be sent to ACTIONAID Nepal, for inclusion in the ACTIONAID Nepal resource centre.

Workshop Report on “Participatory Vulnerability Analysis” Page 1 of 82

Acronyms CBDP : Community Based Disaster Prevention CBO : Community Based Organization CDO : Chief District Officer DDC : District Development Committee DIO : Divisional Irrigation Office DOI : Department of Irrigation E&DM : Emergency and Disaster Management FGD : Focus Group Discussion GO : Government Organization HMG : His Majesty's Government INGO : International Non Governmental Organization KII : Key Informant Information NGO : Non Governmental Organization NPC : National Planning Commission NRCS : Nepal Red Cross Society UNDP : United Nations Development Program VDC : Village Development Committee


Table of Content

1 The Context: Disaster and Vulnerability 1

1.1 Vulnerability in the Context of ActionAid International 2

1.2 Forms of Vulnerability 2

1.3 Linkages between Vulnerability with other Disciplines 2

2 Participatory Vulnerability Analysis 3

2.1 Core principles of PVA 3

2.2 PVA at the different levels 3

2.3 Role of PVA in the context of Action Aiders and its partners 4

3 PVA in the Context of Actionaid Nepal 5

3.1 A Historical Timeline 5

3.2 PVA Workshop in Nepal 5

3.3 Participation 6

3.4 Resources 6

3.5 Sampling/Selection 6

3.6 The Communities 6

3.7 Use of Secondary Data 6

3.8 Data and Data Management Information Dissemination 7

3.9 Participatory Tools and Techniques 7

3.10 Key Outputs from Data Analysis 8

3.11 Ties to Decision Making Process 9

3.12 Analysis from Field PVA presentations 9

3.12 Participant’s Feelings, after having a PVA training

Commitments

10

3.14 Outcome / Impact 10

4 Data to be documented 11


5 Issues Emerged while Analysing the Vulnerability 11

6 Institutionalizing PVA 12

7 Gaps and Challenges 12

8 Benefits of PVA 12

9 Learning and Sharing 13

10 The Way Forward 15

11 Summing up 15

Workshop Proceedings 17

Annexes 54


Workshop Report on Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (November 14-19, 2005)

Hotel Global, Bharatpur, Chitwan 1. The Context: Disaster and Vulnerability Disaster is an unexpected phenomenon. Due to frequent floods and chronic landslides, Nepal is regarded a highly disaster prone area. Both floods and landslides damage the infrastructures, erodes the productive agriculture land and cause to take away thousand of lives and livestock. There are various reasons behind the heavy disasters. Development activities haphazardly implemented without maintaining the norms (road, buildings), deforestation, adaptation of the traditional practices of making khoriya for cultivation, and encroachments of flood plains are some of the immediate reasons. Break of epidemic, migration, starvation, deaths, beggary, suicide, disability and illness are the post disaster syndromes. Disasters are responsible for significant economic loss, erosion in social and financial capitals, psychological dislocation and widespread physical injury and death. Poor, children, elderly and disadvantaged people are more vulnerable to the disaster and post disaster effects because of their poor access to and control over the necessary resources. The vulnerability situation depends on family, community and hazards. Due to the socio-economic condition and inadequate awareness among the people of the community, they are not been able to face these hazards, so their condition is being vulnerable day by day. As the hazard is increasing, vulnerability is also increasing due to the multiple effects of the previous hazards. Further, it is also seen that there is a strong relation between hazards, vulnerability and poverty. The poverty is found to be the major cause of vulnerability. And the poverty is the consequence of hazards.

The vulnerability is the cause of poor unity and network of the disaster victims, ineffective mitigation measures during disaster, poor capacity of community to fight against the disaster, inadequate preparedness and mitigation plans on time. In order to cope with vulnerability, advance planning and preparation is needed and capacity of the people should be increased to mobilize internal as well as external resources. Increase leadership quality, provide vocational skills and techniques to seek the alternative income source are equally important. Those communities which have capacity to analysis their vulnerability and its underlying causes can manage disaster more easily. The ways of minimizing the vulnerability are multifarious. It has to be dealt with both from social/institutional and technical perspectives. Building the capacity of local communities is the foremost step to deal with the implication of disaster. For this, community themselves have to assess their capacities to deal with the extent of vulnerability. 1.1 Vulnerability in the Context of ActionAid International Vulnerability is considered to be the main linking factor between emergencies and long term development work. The emergencies strategy of ActionAid has also emphasised on


analysing vulnerabilities in long-term work and using this analysis in building local resilience, readiness and long term recovery. 1.2 Forms of Vulnerability There are many forms of vulnerability. They are: poverty and vulnerability, needs and vulnerability, deprivation and vulnerability and disadvantage and vulnerability. Poverty and vulnerability: Poverty and vulnerability are strongly linked and mutually re-enforcing and these are brought about by the same process. All poor are vulnerable and most of the vulnerable are poor. Poverty is not the only factor, which leads to vulnerability; there can be other factors like geographical location, communal conflict, etc. Needs and vulnerability: Vulnerability is not just connoted with needs but is broader than that. Needs are the outer symptoms while vulnerability remains hidden and strikes back. People who cannot meet their basic needs are more vulnerable than others. During a disaster, the well-off recover much more quickly than those who are struggling to meet their basic needs. Deprivation and vulnerability: Any kind of deprivation i.e. deprivation of information, resources, or services generates vulnerability. Disadvantage and vulnerability: It involves the access and control of resources. Disadvantaged status reinforces the vulnerability. All the above can be regarded as conditions of exposure to vulnerability. It affects people/ groups of people everywhere by different magnitude and categories. It also depends on the context, which varies from one place to another. Among many, the major dimensions of vulnerability are physical, social, cultural, gender, generational, economic, and political. Vulnerability can be formulated as follows. Vulnerability = Hazard/Capacities, or Risk x Capacities/Hazard 1.3 Linkages between Vulnerability with Other Disciplines Vulnerability can be considered to have strong linkages between emergencies and long term development work. The emergency strategy of ActionAid International also emphasises the analysis of vulnerabilities to promote long-term development work. PVA is a systematic analytic process which can develop and build local capacities to understand their situations of vulnerabilities. It is also useful in developing local communities' resilience, strengthening their capacities for prevention and mitigation work. PVA promotes their ability to overcome and reduce the impact of vulnerabilities and also promote long term recovery. It is therefore important to view vulnerability analysis as a process with strong linkages into many thematic areas within the work of ActionAid International. These themes focus on enhancing, the rights of women and girls, promoting good governance, food security, education, preventing HIV/AIDS, conflicts and


emergencies, and engaging in policy influencing and advocacy work in favour of the poor and disadvantaged. 2. Participatory Vulnerability Analysis Understanding the degree of capacity of the community for reducing their vulnerability is a fundamental principle of the PVA. Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (PVA) is a systematic process that empowers communities to understand their own situation of vulnerabilities and take active measures. At the core of PVA lies the local knowledge and capacities of the people to articulate, identify and develop plans for their situations of vulnerabilities. It involves communities and other stakeholders in an in-depth examination of their vulnerability, and at the same time empowers or motivates them to take appropriate actions. The overall aim of PVA is to link disaster preparedness and response to long-term development. PVA is a qualitative way of analyzing vulnerability, which involves participation of vulnerable people themselves. The analysis helps us to understand vulnerability, its root causes and most vulnerable groups, and agree on actions by, with and to people to reduce their vulnerability. By analysis, we mean the process of breaking down something into component parts, which can then be addressed systematically. PVA has its own principles, which are outlined below. 2.1 Core Principles of PVA The core principles of PVA are: • PVA acts as an active agency that poor people can and involve in finding the solutions

to the problems they face. • It is not an end in itself; it should result in action and change for the better. • The sources of vulnerability and solutions to vulnerability are located or controlled

outside the community, so it needs a multi-level process. • It is based on ActionAid’s rights based approach. 2.2 PVA at the Different Levels Community level: At the community level analysis, local facilitators will help the community to analyse their vulnerabilities in the meetings and discussion sessions. The participatory and Reflect approaches will be used to incorporate community’s perception of their vulnerabilities. But at the same time, local facilitators will feed in some issues extracted from the other levels of analysis. District/Project level: At the district/project level analysis, community representatives will involve other stakeholders and will translate the issues into the local level advocacy and lobbying. The regional/ country and international level of analysis will extract the ideas & issues from the community and district level analysis to feed into the policy and advocacy work. Studies on specific issues identified by the analysis will be conducted and learning will be promoted by workshops, reports and exchange visits.


Regional/Country Level: At this stage, studies on selected issues will be made and major issues and outcome of the studies will be disseminated through national level advocacy and lobbying. In doing so, exchange visits and monitoring as well as national level workshops are beneficial. International Level: At this stage, coordination and documentation activities will be implemented in the full swing. Other activities like technical support from outside like in policy and advocacy work. International workshops and interactions are also useful to exchange the knowledge and experiences. 2.3 Role of PVA in the Context of Action Aiders and its Partners PVA has its place in the promotion and attainment of the above. For instance, working in poverty reduction will require PVA. • The attainment of livelihoods and reduction of vulnerability to food insecurity, poor

health, management and maintenance of community natural resources to reduce environmental degradation.

• Gender issues, including various forms of marginalization, social exclusion and deprivation of the rights of poor and vulnerable groups within the communities,-Dalits issues, the untouchables, including people considered as 'squatters' and street children.

• Utilization in searching of opportunities for change in status quo of the poor and marginalized including the promotion of long-term development and focus on rights based approaches to development. PVA – can examine root causes of poverty, marginalization and exclusion the issues related to power dynamics and power relationship.

PVA encourages enhanced awareness and sensitivity to poor and marginalized that are often not present during meetings. These categories of people need to be heard. Often they may not be visible or may remain silent and unheard because of the cultural and social norms. Enhanced awareness of structural injustices and exclusion can enable us to utilize PVA to unearth and examine in each context – the existing power and marginalisation processes. Thus, PVA can serve as a process that reveals vulnerable and excluded groups in the communities we serve and indicates ways in which these people are exposed to hazards, risks and even disasters. PVA utilizes various participatory techniques to probe and ask questions, engage communities in a reflective process to provide answers to the following questions: Who controls power? Who is excluded and made vulnerable by this power? Who has access to livelihood resources and who does not? What are the root causes of people's vulnerabilities? PVA reveals those who are socially excluded. Social exclusion can be defined in terms of caste system, gender disparities, ethnicity, status and various forms of disabilities. The work on vulnerability was viewed in the light of "Fighting Poverty Together” and framed within the context of AAI Global Strategy entitled "Rights to End Poverty", (R2EP) to be implemented during 2005-2010. It is evident R2EP places the poor and marginalized, particularly women and girls, at the core of AAN programming. It also calls for their active


agency including AAN partnership with CSOs to form networks and alliances to advocate for pro-poor polices and ensure that duty bearers meet their obligations. Emphasis is on RBA to promote equity and social justice. 3. PVA in the Context of Actionaid Nepal 3.1 A Historical Timeline In the first time, PVA Dorset Report was received in 2002. Subsequently, in the following year, in 2003, PVA Guide draft was received. A year later Actionaid shared this draft PVA guidebook to its partner NGOs. This concept was applied in the first time by Friends Services Council in 5 VDCs and 1 Municipality of Rupandehi District in June-September 2004 (Please refer annex for proceedings of the training cum workshop). In June 2005, Actionaid Nepal staff participated in PVA workshop India to sharpen the knowledge about the PVA and its associated issues. Then, PVA guide (Final copy) was received/circulated. Finally, PVA Training cum workshop was organized in Chitwan, Nepal in November 2005 to further sharpen the knowledge and understanding among AAN and its partners about PVA. Apart from these activities, community issues were identified organizing mass meetings at most hazardous /vulnerable locations in Rupandehi, Chitwan and Makwanpur Districts of Nepal under Safety Net Campaign. The outcome issues were presented at district level involving all district line agencies to address the specific issues by the specific departments of local governments. e. g. flood, wild animal, health, education, etc. The district level issues were shared at national level involving related I/NGOs, National Planning Commission, Government Departments and Ministers. In this way, the issues of vulnerability were taken in to discussion to find the root causes of vulnerability and its associated issues. 3.2 PVA Workshop in Nepal The PVA training cum workshop was conducted in Chitwan District / Central Terai from 14-19 November 2005. The overall objectives and aims were two fold: first to familiarize the PVA process to the AAN Staff, Partner NGOs, local stakeholders and the community and; second, to enable the community to develop understanding of their situation of vulnerability and to empower them to take forward the issue to claim the compensation and mobilize them to engage in rights based advocacy for development and improvement of safety nets. The objectives of the workshop were to: • generate a common consensus on plan for a research programme on vulnerability

analysis • share what we know and don’t know about vulnerability • learn and think about vulnerability and how this can be analysed effectively • develop a network of people working on vulnerability & emergencies within ActionAid

in the different parts of world


3.3 Participation in the Workshop In the workshop, varieties of people from different disciplines were involved. • ActionAid Nepal staff and Partners (14) (includes Theme leaders for Education, Food

security, Dalit, Governance, Peace and Conflict, Urban Poverty, Education, Impact Assessment, Program Officers, Coordinators)

• Representatives of other NGO/CBOs and Networks (9) • Local Government representative (1) • Community Volunteer/Activists (6) • Disaster Victim/Vulnerable community members (12) 3.4 Human Resources The following were the resources of AA Nepal to carry out the PVA Workshop. • AA International Resource Person • PVA Guide Book • In-house Pool of Experts on Participatory Tools and Techniques • Committed Human Resources • Appropriate logistic management, and • Media 3.5 Selection of Samples These communities were selected as per the following criteria • Proximity to the workshop venue (low security threats) • New DI area of AAN, so needs planning… • AAN’s engagement with Food Security and NRM issue in the area • Felt need of Disaster preparedness works • Community issue linked with PVA process 3.6 The Communities Selected As a part of the workshop, the participants of the training visited two communities of Nepal, viz: Meghauli and Divyanagar /Jagatpur of Chitwan, Nepal. Meghauli and Divyanagar/Jagatpur VDCs of Chitwan District face heavy flood and landslides every year, and lose land, livelihood, life and property. The area also falls under the buffer zone of the Royal Chitwan National (Wildlife) Park, thus wild animals damage the standing crops as well as kills people every year. Communities are not able to claim compensations for damaged crops and life due to complex compensation policy of the government. They are not able to argue with Army that guard at the National Park. Though there is provision of investing the 50% income of the Park for the betterment of surrounding community, no proper development activities were running due to poor local governance. 3.7 Use of Secondary Data The secondary information that was used was drawn from the following sources. • The existing secondary data from the Partner NGO and networks / DDC and VDC

profile. • Document Mapping of previous project works.


3.8 Data and Data Management Information Dissemination Primary data were generated from PVA and secondary data were used for probing. For this, analysis of vulnerability situation was made through • Prevalence/extent of vulnerability • Coping ability and approaches of different people • Analysis of present threats/vulnerabilities After consultation and feed back from the participants and community, report was finalized and disseminated. Nepali language was used for the report and it was also made available for the community and CBOs for future reference. 3.9 Participatory Tools and Techniques The following participatory tools and techniques were used for the purpose of primary data collection. • Transact Walk • Focused Group Discussion • Time Line • Seasonal Calendar • Social/Resource/Vulnerability

Mapping • Mobility Mapping • Venn diagram • Well-being Ranking A process of making vulnerability map

• REFLECT - • Problem Tree • Conflict Analysis – Power Analysis –

Force field Analysis • Gender Analysis – Time Chart • Stepping Stone - Counselling • Livelihood Analysis/Cob-Web • SWOT Analysis

A map showing clusters 3.10 Key Outputs from Data Analysis


After the analysis of primary data collection, the causes of vulnerability, their cause and effects and prioritization were found. From the analysis of the data available from two communities, the causes of vulnerability were identified as follows. • Narayani and Rapti River • Wild Animals • Army (Guards of National Park) • Multiple Affects of Hazards and Poor governance From the detail field work, the major causes of physical vulnerability were found as: • Presence of the settlement area, buildings, arable lands physical infrastructures and

necessary services in disaster prone areas. • Lack of alternative livelihood resources. • Inadequate access and control over the production of resources. • Dependence on elites and well-off people. • Inadequate foodstuffs. • Inadequate necessary education, skills and capacity. • Inadequate basic services such as education, health-related services, drinking water,

sanitation, roads, electricity, and communication facilities. • Diseases and epidemics. Similarly, the major causes of socio-economic vulnerability were recorded as: • Weak family lineage structure. • Inadequate leadership qualities. • Unpractical decision-making process. • Unequal access to legal and treatments services. • Inadequate access to political services. • Weak community based institutions. • Orthodox thinking towards change and modernizations. • Dependent with others, belief on fate and lack of unity and coordination. • Inadequate enough knowledge about threats and risk. • Inadequate enough resources for rehabilitation. • Weak social harmony and cooperation. • Gender and caste discrimination. • No access to information. • No preparedness plans and strategies. • Erosion of agriculture land by flood • Standing crop submerged for several days • Collapse of thatched house and loss of lives of livestock and family members Prioritisation of vulnerability was shared as follows: • Poverty and poorness • No sustainable means of resources to cope with livelihoods • No unity and network of the disaster victims • Not effective mitigation measures during disaster


• Poor capacity of community to fight against the disaster • Lack of proper preparedness and mitigation plans on time • No action to cope with vulnerability • No sufficient advance planning and preparation • Poor capacity of the people to mobilise internal resources • Inability to manage the external resources to cope with the problems • Extraction of stone, sand from the river. They are also causes for the disaster inviting

the vulnerability situation. • Unavailability of the information about warning system and advance forecasting • Absence of secure place to rehabilitate people and cattle. • Absence of leadership quality; need to provide vocational skills and techniques to seek

the alternative income source. • Non existence of management plan for temporary shelter in advance. It was also found that, following actions were adopted by the communities to reduce the vulnerabilities: • Formation of a Pressure Groups at community/cluster level • Delegation to Stakeholders to familiarize the situation of various forms of disasters • Establishment of Flood Early Warning System on the basis of their local knowledge • Organization of Interaction with Authorities for external resource mobilization • Capacity building trainings to the communities to cope with disaster and vulnerability. 3.11 Ties to Decision Making Process Key steps carried out to tie PVA with the initiatives of other agencies. • Adopt the outcome findings of PVA workshop for Annual Plan and Budget of

DDC/VDC, AAN, NGOs • Incorporate the findings / outcome of PVA workshop in District Disaster Management

Strategy of Chitwan District • Incorporate the issues that are generated from PVA in AAN long term development

program 3.12 Analysis from Field PVA Presentations From the presentation of both groups and issues and concerned raised by the participants in the plenary session, it was inferred that: • The vulnerability situation depends on family, community and hazards. Due to the

socio-economic condition and lack of awareness among the people of the community, they are not been able to withstand these hazards, so there condition is being vulnerable day by day. As the hazard is increasing, vulnerability is also increasing due to the multiple effects of the previous hazards.

• Hazards related to vulnerability also depend on the availability of food. The vulnerability is found more prevailing in the period of food scarcity than during the period of availability of food. It is also seen that there is a strong relation between hazards, vulnerability and poverty. The poverty is found to be the major cause of vulnerability. And the poverty is the consequences of hazards.


• Those people who are vulnerable are not able to manage the resources by their own after it occurs, i.e. they cannot face the disaster. Those whose livelihood is fluctuated by the disaster cannot manage the disaster by their own efforts. Similarly, those people do not fall under vulnerable category who can easily face the disaster or who are able to rehabilitate by their own resources after disaster.

3.13 Participant’s Feelings, after having a PVA training • Participants recognised that they did not know much about the idea of vulnerability and

its associated issues before coming to the workshop. Now they not only knew different aspects of it but also developed a common understanding to perceive it.

• Work on PVA is important because of its scope for linking emergencies with long term development work; its deep link with poverty and inter-relatedness with rights issues.

• PVA draws its mandate from Fighting Poverty Together by contributing for the core themes of participation, rights and advocacy. For this, PVA should be participatory, qualitative, empowering and capable of analysing responsibilities and capacities.

• No single definition of vulnerability captures all its dimensions, complexities and applications. Similarly, no single model or generalisation can be applied to all the places and contexts. Vulnerability analysis also includes stakeholders, capacities, rights and responsibilities analysis.

• It is better if analysis is based on the community’s own agenda at the community level with some input from the facilitators. In this way, community’s time will be spent to pursue their own motives rather than to feed the organisation.

• Every analysis should be followed by action but there can be some cases where no service delivery action is required.

3.14 Commitments from Various Stakeholders Followings are the commitments from various stakeholders to carry out the PVA process in the future. • Community ready to form Action Groups • Local NGO/CBOs come forward to raise the issue to District level • AAN and (DI) Partner NGO ready to provide resources for capacity building and

advocacy • DDC agrees to mediate the talk/interaction with stakeholders/Line agencies 3.15 Outcome / Impact The outcome and impact generated from the workshop were as follows. • Commitment by the DDC representatives to take the issue further in their annual plan. • Local NGO/CBOs agree to facilitate the Advocacy process. • Development of PVA Network in the Region • Commitment to use PVA while selecting DA DI for AAN • Use of PVA for community level annual plan budget formulation • Use of PVA for PRRP – Monitoring, Impact and Evaluation


4. Data Documentation The following are the key steps to be considered before making the PVA exercise in the field. • Who are the most vulnerable and were they involved in the analysis? • What are they vulnerable to? • What are the changes in vulnerabilities over time? • What are the underlying causes of vulnerabilities? • Unsafe conditions (e.g. flow of information, coping mechanisms, level of assets etc). • Differential levels of vulnerability (geographical location, access and control over

resources, power, gender, economic etc). • Underlying factors and trends (e.g. trade policies, land rights etc). • What are the characteristics of the categories of vulnerable poor: improving, coping and

declining? • What assets do they have access to and control? • Why are they vulnerable now? • Why will they be vulnerable in future? • What strategies do they use to reduce vulnerability and cope? • How are assets used and what assets are used? • What strategies do they use during crisis? • What are their long-term livelihood strategies? • What aspects of vulnerabilities can be used as indicators in programme reviews and

impact assessments? 5. Issues Emerged while Analysing the Vulnerability The participants identified the following issues related to vulnerability, while working with two communities. • Should the vulnerability analysis be one time or continuous process integrated within

existing work. In case, it is a one time activity, what should be the ideal timing of the analysis?

• Adequate capacity/skills of analysis/facilitation of the local facilitators to conduct good analysis, which provide different options.

• Balance between external and local knowledge/information. What and how much information will be injected during analysis and what will be extracted?

• How to develop true participation and ownership of the vulnerability in the analysis. • Analysis should adequately incorporate community’s perception of vulnerabilities. • Should the analysis be necessarily followed by action in order to bring change? What

should be the balance between analysis and action? • Application of vulnerability analysis in conflict situation. • How vulnerability analysis can capture the complex and dynamic situation of

communities. • Involvement of other actors/stakeholders i.e. government, other civil society

organisations, etc. in the vulnerability analysis. • Linking the outcome of analysis to long-term development work (not only to

emergencies work).


• How policies, which are mostly designed outside the communities, affect vulnerabilities of people (market forces, trends in trade etc).

• How vulnerability analysis can feed into the policy and advocacy. • How to treat vulnerability as a product of development? Mostly developmental

initiatives are meant to decrease vulnerabilities but sometime they increase people’s vulnerabilities.

• Should the capacity analysis be the part of vulnerability analysis as the poor people have many capacities?

• How to develop linkages to different levels i.e. community, district, regional/national, international, while doing causal analysis.

• Vulnerability analysis should include endowments and entitlements of the communities along with the causes and underlying forces, which make people vulnerable.

• Should the analysis be necessarily followed by action in order to bring change? What should be the balance between analysis and action?

• How to develop true participation and ownership of the most vulnerable in the analysis. • How changes or progression of vulnerability can be monitored and recorded over time? • Is it possible to predict about future vulnerabilities based on experience and action? If

so, what can be the indicators to make it predictive? • Can vulnerability be used as an indicator in program reviews and impact assessments? • How PVA can be linked to Fighting Poverty Together: Global strategy of AA. 6. Institutionalizing the PVA • The need for AA Nepal and partners to chart the way forward by strengthening

networks for PVA, AAN needs to undertake PVA at District and community levels to feed into National and International levels- i.e. Using PVA analysis (community, district, country & international).

• Share and learn experiences – many of the trained participants in Nepal have committed themselves to use PVA in future programme activities.

7. Gaps and Challenges The following are the gaps and challenges recorded from the PVA exercise. • PVA Timing – must suit for community • Owning PVA – PVA not only Emergency’s Tools • External facilitators need to be catalyst and local facilitators need to carry out the

process as an activist to mobilize community for addressing the root causes of vulnerability & other findings

• Establishing linkages between emergencies and long term development work • Generating expectations as problem increase • Requirement of high level of commitments of Time and Resources – needs continued

follow-ups 8. Benefits of PVA On the basis of analysis of the PVA process, following benefits are identified:


• PVA is central to not only emergencies work but also to policy, advocacy and long term development issues. It involves the exploration of root causes of natural and man made disasters as well as chronic states of vulnerabilities. It can definitely be linked in rights based approach and advocacy.

• It influences policies related to communities’ vulnerability issues and location, income, livelihood, services, gender, generation and other dimensions.

• The importance of vulnerability analysis should be highlighted at different levels of policy work and advocacy work / the outcomes of analysis should feed into our on-going work on these areas.

9. Learning and Sharing The following issues were identified for learning and sharing purpose: For community participation • How to use PVA process to ensure community participation. • Linkage of PVA to emergencies, reduction of vulnerabilities and long-term

development efforts • Linkage of PVA to RBA works to aware rights, and to build the capacity to enhance

networking and advocacy work of NGOs/CBOs • Emergence of PVA in rights and advocacy at all levels-local, national and international • Working with the community in free time of community.

• Work as a facilitator • Hurry in finishing the work rather than problem identification • Unable to explore all issues of community • It was realised to have matured people while visiting the community • It is better to convey message 2 days earlier for more participation of people

• It was realised from the field work that PVA is also feasible apart from the disaster. The linkage of RBA with PVA is beneficial with each aspects of human life. In this context, the overall realization was as follows:

• Use appropriate tools in local context for PVA • Facilitating organization should build the rapport with the communities before

PVA exercise • PVA should be interlinked with scientific research to ensure reliability and

validity of the work • PVA is a continuous process • PVA enhances indigenous knowledge and its dissemination • Root cause analysis and analysis of power dynamics is possible through PVA • PVA awares communities on human rights persecutors • PVA establishes macro-micro linkages

For PVA method/process • Every analysis should be followed by action to bring change. • Reflective, engaging and participatory approaches should be used to empower

communities.


• PVA should be a continuous process integrated with existing work of Actionaid International.

• Efforts to be made to predict future vulnerabilities by combining experience and action (for mitigation and prevention work, develop early warning systems/ mechanisms and responses in place).

• Analysis of vulnerability at one level can be linked to other levels to promote long-term development work.

• Capacity of local facilitators should also be developed for improved facilitation and analysis of PVA initiatives, particularly familiarity and use various tool of social analysis, e.g. PRA, gender analysis, conflict analysis, Reflect, Stepping Stones, Power analysis and Assets mapping tools to undertake PVA.

• PVA uses participatory tools and we should examine ways to use other systems – Scientific methods should use in social analysis to enrich analysis on vulnerability mapping.

On the basis of collection of data, and analysis of information, it is learnt that: • Most vulnerable to be involved in the analysis, it means involvement of stakeholders at

all levels in the analysis. • Proper timing- recognizing that poor and vulnerable groups are constantly engaged in

‘bread and butter’ survival activities- for understanding farming calendar and ensuring proper timing

• Developing a sense of ownership of analysis in the community. • PVA process should gradually empower the community (active engagement of the poor

and disadvantaged). • PVA should incorporate communities’ perception about vulnerabilities. • There should be a balance of local and outsider's information/knowledge while doing

PVA (do not force our own agenda on the people). In additions to above aspects, the other lessens learned from PVA are recorded as: • PVA help to increase Community Participation: Most vulnerable to be involved in the

analysis, it means involvement of stakeholders at all levels in the analysis- community, district, and national / international levels - engage in campaigns to influence policy makers and duty bearers, advocate for pro-poor policies that work in favour of people to reduce their vulnerabilities.

• PVA in the appropriate time: It was learnt that PVA should carry out at the appropriate time of the community. It is because poor and vulnerable groups are constantly engaged in "bread and butter" survival activities. The understanding of local communities, farming calendar and ensuring proper timing of PVA to get maximum participation meaningfully.

• Developing a sense of ownership: This is particularly important for people who are often excluded and absence in decision making processes. The need for heighten awareness of socially excluded groups such as the Dalits and others is important. They need to be included in the discourse during PVA.

• Interface of local and outsider's information/knowledge: There would be a balance of local and outsider's information/knowledge while doing PVA (it is not wise to force outsiders agenda on the people).


• Empowerment of Local People: The PVA process lead to active agency and empowerment of the community (active engagement of the poor and marginalized) in developing deep understanding of their situation of vulnerability and what the root causes of their conditions are. PVA tries to incorporate communities’ perception and feelings about vulnerabilities, underlying cause and suitable coping strategies.

10. The Way Forward On the basis of analysis, the following are some of the way forwards: • We will create Matrix for Collating CP experiences and enhance mechanisms to share

information on best practices. • Examine and outline of challenges and key achievement (including impact) on PVA (or

value added of PVA) • Make concrete suggestions on areas for improvement on the PVA methodology- using

experiences on what has worked/not worked- provide suggestions on technical gaps and agreement on how these will be filled etc.

• Input into the trainers guide based on the skills gap. • Participatory/Reflect approaches will be used at the community level analysis and the

capacity of facilitators will be build before conducting analysis. • Efforts will be made to integrate PVA into the existing policies/programmes. • The need for AA Nepal and partners to chart the way forward by strengthening existing

networks for PVA. • Undertake PVA at District levels to feed into National and International levels- i.e.

Using PVA analysis (community, district, country and international). • Create opportunities for partners and those who have been exposed to participatory

vulnerability capacity analysis to use PVA, also, engage in share and learning experiences.

• Create advocacy networks and mobilize resources to follow-up on community action points which has been developed from PVA in the field work.

• Share reports and case studies with all other AAI CPs Nepal’s implementation of PVA. 11. Summing up In zest, following things could be concluded on the whole PVA process: • The PVA process is designed to help the community analyse their own situation. • During a PVA, data collection, analysis and action emanating from the analysis are all

conducted with the community. Moreover, there is no further analysis done by external facilitators alone where communities are not involved.

• The PVA process uses a variety of other sources such as secondary information and interviews with other institutions. Information obtained from these sources has to be included in the discussions with the community during a PVA.

• Good facilitation techniques are required to ensure a successful PVA. The tools for data collection, analysis and planning create a framework for the facilitators and the community to discuss.

• In some cases the topics are personal and individuals may feel uncomfortable sharing such deep-seated issues in public. In such cases it is important to discuss with particular groups separately through focus group discussion.


• To draw the attention of illiterate people, use of pictorial tools and techniques is very much important.

• To ensure a successful PVA, adequate preparation in advance is required.


Workshop Proceedings 1. Background Participatory vulnerability analysis (PVA) is a systematic process that involves communities and other stakeholders examining their vulnerability in detail and being empowered or motivated to take appropriate actions. It helps to understand the impact of disasters on people’s lives, livelihoods or environment. Moreover, the rationale of PVA is:

The basic essence of PVA is how communities can be involved in examining their own vulnerability as well as taking appropriate actions both in short and long term. Hence, it opens the way and room for people from all sections of society to identify the causes of vulnerability, prioritise the causes and prepare an action plan on the basis of it.

PVA makes use of participatory tools to ensure active community involvement. As a result, it helps to generate reliable primary information in the participation of all people including illiterate people.

To diagnose varieties of vulnerability as well as their underlying forces and factors, PVA plays a vital role. It is also able to generate information on specific vulnerable groups, hazards and locations. It focuses on the participatory process with an objective of participation and empowerment of vulnerable people by specifying their rights and responsibilities.

It informs communities and stakeholders for better emergency preparedness, mitigation and response as well as execution of better development work on the basis of pre and agreed plans and programmes, thus it is useful in integrating development and emergencies work.

2. Objectives The objectives of the workshop were to:

Understand the basic principles of PVA Aware the applicability of PVA in the context of disaster and beyond Learn and think about vulnerability and how this can be analysed effectively, and Aware on the usage of it for the preparation of action plan to fight against

vulnerability situation

Proceedings Day I (November 14, 2005) 3. Welcome/Introduction The brief remark was delivered by Shyam Sundar Jnavaly, Resource Centre Coordinator of Central Resource Centre at Action Aid Nepal Bharatpur. In his remarks, he highlighted the vulnerability and its associated issues and how communities were struggling to fight against the vulnerability. He said that vulnerability is considered to be the main linking factor between emergencies and long term development work. The emergencies strategy of ActionAid has also emphasised on analysing vulnerabilities in long-term work and


using this analysis in building local resilience, readiness and long term recovery. In Nepal, the concept of PVA was started in 2001 and it was developed as a powerful tool in 2005 to analyse the issues of vulnerability. Before proceeding further, he shared the schedule of day one to the participants. The participants were given authority to amend the schedule so that they also feel ownership and internalize what they were willing to learn from this workshop. The detail schedule of the workshop is given in annex-1. 4. Introduction to each other Introduction “to know each other” session was facilitated by Shyam Sunder Jnavaly. He asked all the participants to say “their names among with participating organization and areas of interest in the field of disaster management”. At the end of the exercise, all participants knew each others in terms of name, the participating organization and their areas of interest/experience in the field of disaster management. There were 32 participants in the workshop. The list of names and participating organisations is given in annex-2.

Workshop Participants

5. Ground Rules In order to systematise the workshop and make it more effective and meaningful, the workshop participants agreed to set “Ground Rules”. This session was facilitated by Mr Deepak Poudel and Mr Dhruba Raj Gautam. Those ground rules were:

Session should be started from 9 AM and end at 17 PM. To develop concentration in each session and discussion, participants need to

“Switch up the mobile”. Participants need to stay for a full time in each session. Participants need to develop a culture of ‘active listening’, ‘mutual respect’ and

‘listen to and learn from each other’.

The following participants were allocated the following roles and responsibilities to systematise the sessions of each day. Key Activities Responsible person/(s) Energiser : Mr. Rajesh Hamal


Overall Management : Mr. Deepak Lamichhane Reporter : Mr. Dhruba Raj Gautam, Ms Madhavi Pradhan Power Group analysis : Mr. Manish Pradhan, Mr. Bimal Gadal, Ms Subhala Subba,

Ms Amrita Sharma Logistics : Mr Krishna Chandra Acharya 6. Welcome/Introduction This session was lead by Ms Agnes Campbell. In her remarks, she highlighted the following issues:

All the workshop participants are both “learners” and “teachers”. So, she expected to have good discussion and interaction throughout the workshop in each session/issue.

PVA has been beneficial to analysis the risks, hazards and vulnerability situation. Cross fertilization of learning will provide the culture sharing and learning from

each other. Participants need to discuss on the proposed PVA guidebook, identify the gaps, if

any paving for its further improvement. In this session, Mr Shyam Sunder Jnavaly also highlighted the following issues associated with the workshop.

Participants need to perceive PVA as ‘non-structured’, there is large scope to discuss on it and to make suggestion for further improvement.

Field based learning will sharpen the knowledge of participants to look and understand the issues of vulnerability.

PVA exercise will provide an opportunity to collect field based information, and synthesis information to make an action plan.

Then expectations were collected from the participants. Those expectations were as follows:

Understanding of the use of PVA beyond the vulnerability (i.e. to cover social, political and economic issues related to people’s poverty).

Linkage of PVA for impact assessment and monitoring process. Identification of the gaps (the types of issues to be explored for the vulnerability

analysis). Sharing of knowledge and experience Development of capacity to support/complement for district level plan. Identification of the ways of collecting reliable primary information. Expectation to hear about PVA from international experience. Ability to distinguish the fundamental difference between PRA, RRA, PLA and

PVA. Ways of identifying/assessing level and extent of vulnerability. Exploration of the ways for “why people are vulnerable”. Increase in the knowledge of “analysing the vulnerability”. Learning of the linkage of PVA tools to other tools.


7. Develop common understanding of the terminology used in disaster This session was led by Shyam Sunder Jnavaly. Before initiating the work, participants requested for the clarification of Hazards, Risks, Threats, Disaster exposure and vulnerability. He tried to clarify the meaning and differences in meaning of these terminologies by giving examples of drawing (mentioning the stone at the top of the hills and how the settlements at the downstream are affected from that). Agnes Campbell also added her experience by giving the examples to show the basic difference among these terminologies. An intensive discussion was held among the participants. After clarification, the participants were requested to divide into two groups and make the list of terminology used in disaster management and their simple meaning in local language. The participants were asked to come in the common consensus. After the discussion, each group leader was asked to present the group work. After the presentation, synthesis was made to develop the common understanding about these terminologies. And these agreed meaning of each terminology was typed and circulated to the participants. This session helped to develop the common understanding about the participants on disaster related terms and their simple meanings.

Work to develop simple meanings of key terminologies

8. Facilitation Skills It was realized that the role of participatory tools and techniques for PVA was crucial. It was also agreed that the role of good facilitation skills for using PRA tools was important. This session was led by Ms Madhabi Pradhan and Ms Amrita Sharma. In the beginning, they shared the importance and role of effective facilitation skills for using participatory tools and techniques. They divided workshop participants into two groups by giving two different colours of flowers. The same flower choosers were requested to be one group and vice versa. The task for each group was divided in the following way. Task for Group A: Basic principles and tools to be used for facilitation skills. Task for Group B: Skills needed for effective facilitation.


Then two groups worked in their respective theme and prepared the presentation. But before the presentation, Mr. Bimal Gadal sang a song that covered the issues of caste discrimination and right based approach. The presentation of Group A was as follows Group A Principles and tools Do’s

Have enough knowledge and command over subject matter Have knowledge about the basic norms, values and culture of ‘working

committee’ Create ‘real’ and ‘easy’ environment Respect to all, obey the community agreed rules Be participatory Be of gentle nature

Don’t

Be a irrational evaluator Be of a showy nature Be reactive to hurt the people

Towards the end of the presentation of Group A, Agnes Campbell shared her feeling as:

Do not create ‘confrontation environment’ Be tactful and diplomatic Recognize the basic principle of ‘social justice’, equity and right.

Similarly, the presentation of Group B was as follows: The group identified the following skills as beneficial for the facilitators:

Language and communication o Use of local language o Clarity in speech o Choice of good words/sensitive

Have good knowledge on subject matter Ensure equal participation before initiating the task Use ‘overhead’ and ‘back through’ approach to deal with community’s issues Select appropriate training materials Deliver clear ‘introduction and objective’ Have positive attitude towards community Follow adult learning techniques Ensure eye contact and use of body language Show jolly nature and use appropriate energiser Understand the importance of group dynamics Have quick decision making power and sum up the outcomes time to time


Manage ‘over smart participants’

Have conflict resolution techniques

Have good listening and observation skills

Have skills of appropriate use of PRA and other tools to generate primary information

Participants are in the process of observation in the field Once the presentations of both groups were finished, the facilitators acknowledged the task carried out by both groups and shared their views by presenting the following tips: Do

Be nice Respect people Be confident about the community ‘they can do it’ Handover the stick Be sensitive Watch, listen and learn Relax Have fun, joke and enjoy Make adequate pre-planning Be simple Take/implement action

Don’t

Rush Lecture Criticize Interrupt Dominate Wear fancy dress

9. Use of PRA and other participatory tools in PVA This session was led by Mr Bala Ram Luitel. In his presentation, he tried to share the meaning of PRA, its major tools; and he shared key tools and their application in the context of collecting primary information from the field


From the discussion, it was agreed that before initiating PRA tools, following steps should be kept in mind:

Conduct desktop study (review of secondary information) Identify the most vulnerability areas Share the objective clearly Build rapport with community

Mr Shyam Sunder Jnavaly highlighted the applicability of PRA tools in the context of PVA. He also argued that one can develop alternative tools and technique for PVA too. It was found that most of the participants were familiar with the PRA tools and techniques, but the main concern was “how to link PRA tools and techniques in the context of PVA and their inter-relationship. In doing so, Ms Agnes Campbell shared her experienced by giving simple example of each tool which is discussed hereunder (Please refer annex-3 for PRA tools and techniques and their application in the context of PVA). 9.1 Timeline Agnes shared that time line is used to get the systematic development of the area and to locate how the area was suffered from various phenomenons such as starvation, drought, landslide, flood, hailstorm, epidemics earthquakes, deforestation etc. She gave very clear example of ‘Conflict” and Peace Process in Sierra Leone through timeline exercise. She shared the historical timeline, shared its linkage with drought, migration, prostitution, and HIV/AIDS, and tried to focus how it added the path for further vulnerability. Mr Shyam Sundar Jnavaly shared that ‘vulnerability has multiple shifting’. 9.2 Seasonal Calendar Agnes shared that seasons are an integral part of people's lives and they exert an important impact upon the livelihood of the local people. It reflects the perceptions of the local people regarding seasonal variations in the various aspects. It helps to identify heavy workload periods, periods of loan, diseases, food deficiency and wage availability as well as flood, fire and wildlife damaged time.

Day II (November 15, 2005) 10. Recap and remarks of power group analysis Mr Dhruba Raj Gautam highlighted the major sessions and issues raised by the participants in the day one before starting the second day events. After recap, power group analysed their feeling about the class room dynamics of day one as follows:

Power of language: All participants were interested to speak in Nepali. Seat arrangement: Most of the participants in the front of the room seem active.

So it was suggested for reshuffling of seat in each day. Mobility of the participants inside/outside the hall was high. So it was suggested

to obey ground rules. Some participants came late, so they were sometimes confused on what was going

on (less attentive towards late comers).


Realize the “people’s power”. The facilitator’s feelings and perceptions were paid due recognition.

11. Use of PRA and other participatory tools in PVA (continue………) 11.1 Problem Tree For the basic ideas to know about the applicability of problem tree to know cause and effects relationship, Ms Agnes took an example from LUMANTI’ NGO. With the help of participants, she drew the following problems (causes) faced by the people living in slums and squatters and their effects as the following:

Open sewerage Thatched house without window Open rivers Garbage No social infrastructure: school/hospital Resources in weak condition Untitled land

Their effects

Poverty Social discrimination

She also tried to give example of ‘causes and effects’ of migration. Causes of migration: poverty, conflicts, droughts, disaster victims Effects of migration: poor housing, sanitation, unsafe drinking water, denied right Specific group has specific issue. So was beneficial. She also added that with the help of FGD, one can further explore the following issues.

Why they are coming in that area (when and how) Social attachment among the people etc

11.2 Transect walk Ms Agnes shared that transect mapping helps to provide cross-sectional representation of the different agro-ecological zones and their comparison against certain parameters including topography, land type, land use, ownership, access, vegetation, crops, problems, opportunities and solutions. It helps to know the most vulnerable areas and coping strategies made by local people. 11.3 Focus group discussion This tool helps to get specific information from same category of well-being groups. Therefore, it is dealt as the centre of the all participatory tools. In the FGD, specific topics are discussed where all participants are encouraged to present their views and opinions. It also help to triangulate the information and data collected from other tools


and techniques. With the help of FGD, it is better to find out the group dynamics, social network and solidarity. In the discussion it was agreed that the extent/magnitude of disaster and vulnerability may differ for different people like adult, children and women. So, special checklist should be produced to explore the issues. 11.4 Social/Resources/Vulnerability Mapping Mapping helps in developing an understanding of available social and natural resource as well as the most vulnerability areas within the certain cluster. It is prepared by local people as the main objective of this exercise is to involve them in the process so that their knowledge, skills and ideas are recognised. Local people are considered to have an in-depth knowledge of the surroundings where they have survived for a long time.

Vulnerability mappings prepared by community people 11.5 Mobility mapping This tool gives the general picture of the mobility of people for various sectors such as education, health, employment, marriage, treatment, seeking help in the case of disaster and emergency, etc. in the chronological order. It helps to triangulate the information of well-being ranking. 11.6 Venn diagram

Venn diagram helps to demonstrate relationships (direct and meaningful or indirect) among the various institutions or community with other organizations in case of coping disaster and vulnerability. It helps project stakeholders to reflect on the nature of coordination between the local community and other organizations.

Venn diagram prepared by local people


11.7 Well-being ranking This tool is used for ranking and grouping households on the basis of income, wealth and others perceivable well-being criteria as expressed by the people. It helps to understand the people's conceptions on wealth, well-being and their views on socio-economic condition related to livelihood and vulnerability.

Venn diagram transcribed from ground in to paper Well-being is culture specific and is difficult to measure. So, the facilitator should have basic knowledge about the people and their culture to which he/she is working with. 11. 8 REFLECT This session was led by Mr. Ram Dayal Yadav. He shared that REFLECT as an abbreviation of Regenerated Fereian Literacy (through) Empowerment Community Techniques. It is considered as:

Education without book Jivenmukhi siksha (Life oriented education) It helps in advocacy through raising the issues It can also be useful in programs other than literacy program It is a powerful tool to empower the community It supports to raise the issues, assess them and guides for efforts to be made for

mitigating the problem It is informal learning approach and conducted as per the wish of the community It is unstructured and issues are finalized by the participants This is useful for disaster management too (what, why, when, ways, effects,

results, resources). In the discussion, the experiences of Prerana (Sindhuli) and HURADEC (Dolakha) about REFLECT model for the empowerment of community were shared. Birth registration campaign in Sarlahi through REFLECT model was also discussed. At the end of his presentation, he summarised that REFLECT can

Enable the community Explore where the resources are, how to explore them and Aware, empowerment, action and social transformation

11.9 Conflict Analysis


This session was facilitated by Mr Anil Pant. In his presentation, he shared the major steps for conflict analysis which are as follows (Please refer annex-4 for detail). Conflict analysis from Development perspectives

There is no need to read out the development theory. The conflict dynamics can be analysed from the assessment of experience.

Why CA? o Difficult to work at community level o Find dos and don’ts of community o Improve the security situation o Support community’s campaign at local level

Clarity in objective is important What is analysis? Causes of analysis

o Social – gender, discrimination o Political – recognition, inclusive democracy o Physical – geography, unequal distribution of the resources

Tier of analysis

International, regional, national and local People-based, decentralisation, right-based Local level analysis is not only sufficient.

Causes of conflict

Dynamics analysis (key issue, responsible actors, interest, reaction, route) Scenario-mapping (to find the trend of history) Analysis of triggers Key issues Peoples’ capacity Humanitarian crises Key stakeholders Others work (on, in and around)

He also highlighted that tracking is also important for conflict analysis, as

Track (in peace process) can be 1. Formal (Maoist + Government) 2. Informal 3. Through development

After the presentation of Mr Pant, Ms Agnes inquired that how conflict analysis model fits into the conflict of gender and youth vs. elderly group. Then Mr. Rajesh Hamal added some points on how to link conflict analysis to PVA tools. In his presentation, he suggested to explore the following issues before conflict analysis process is begun:

Who – actor (parties of conflict) o Caste system (dalit, non-dalit) o Gender (Patriarchy)


Power o Who are vulnerable? o Why they are vulnerable?

What are the issues/interests (interest of needs)? What the effects on the potential consequences to create conflict/worsen

vulnerabilities? Violence-migrated and displaced people How to mitigate? – action plan

11.10 Gender This session was facilitated by Mr Bimal Gadal. In his presentation, he highlighted the following issues while analysing the gender.

Resources Opportunities (access, control) Roles, and Needs

From gender perspectives, children and women are more vulnerable. It was discussed that FGD for separate women is also needed to explore the issues of women. It is because males always dominate even through they are in minority in the group. The promoting factors for gender discrimination are dress, social structure, and social sympathy towards family members. In Sarlahi, it was found that women were more victimised during river flood. So, women should be provided space and allowed to talk and enforce affirmative action. It was also shared that while analysing the gender, power relation and its associated issues should be kept in the centre of the discussion. At the end of the discussion Ms Agnes added that women are overloaded from productive and reproductive work. So, PVA should be interlinked with gender perspectives. 11.11 Stepping Stones Ms Sumita Mathema took this session. In her brief presentation, she expressed that it is a tool that focuses on issues like “Who am I”, and “Look Ourselves”. This tool is mostly used in HIV/AIDS program. There are three key principles of stepping stones.

Maximise 3 ‘C’ (Communication, Coordination and Cooperation) Opening up (Be familiar with each other) Change the attitude and behaviours for social change and social transformation

During the discussion, Mr. Shyam Sundar Jnavaly shared that vulnerability analysis could be possible from variety of tools and techniques. Stepping stone tool could be beneficial to analyse the vulnerability. He said that disaster invites other associated problems. For examples, from UNDP study in Chitwan to Sarlahi districts, it was found that girls trafficking and prostitution was severe where disaster frequently occurred.


11.12 Social Inclusion, Right Based Approach and Power analysis This session was facilitated by Mr Maneesh Pradhan (Please see annex-5 for detail). In his presentation he shared that right means accountability, justice, self-reliance, social recognition and claim over right. He shared the types of rights as social, economical, political, cultural and civil. He said that for rights,

Accountability of duty bearers and participation of right holders for equality/non-discrimination is needed.

Changes in policies, institutions, attitudes, participation and power relation is required.

He shows how RBA cycle evolves and continues. The cycle is comprise steps: Situation-Position-Strategy-Action-Outcome. He shared that Children, Women, Janajali, HIV/AIDS victims, Landless, Ex-Kamaiya and Disables are mostly excluded from the mainstreaming development. So emphasis should be given to include these groups. For power analysis, he focused in his presentation the need to identify key power centres, and opportunities and challenges of each of all actors. 11.13 Sustainable Livelihood analysis This session was facilitated by Mr Shyam Sundar Jnavaly. He shared that Sustainable Livelihood Framework is helpful to reduce the vulnerability. It also helps to motivate people on the necessity of collective action to increase their participation and solidarity. He discussed the five capitals and their characteristics as follows. Social/ Political Capital

Increase in solidarity Development of the sense of identity, honour and belongings Interaction through shared interest, increase in people's ability to work together Building of relationship of trust and cooperation Social network for innovation and development of sharing of knowledge Ways of survivals in the time of extreme vulnerability i.e., Parma, neighbourhood

supports, etc. Enforcement of group decision to solve problems Formulation of the norms and values Sharing of the power relations among the people

Human Capital Increase in local capacity in terms of knowledge, skills and exposure. Change in the orthodox thinking among the people. Initiation for preparedness plans and programs. Skilled labour force.

Financial Capital

Decrease in cost of construction of houses and infrastructures.


Increase in the mobilisation of internal resources and management.

Physical Capital Continuation of public services. Construction of simple infrastructures. Maintenance of shared infrastructures. Access to road.

Natural Capital Preservation of the water resources. Reclamation of the land resources for better production. Access to better-serviced land. Management of common resources.

At the end of the discussion, he clarified the importance of this tool by drawing the spider diagram. He also shared that spider diagram provided clear picture about the aspects to widen and make a plan to tackle it. 12. Synthesis of Participatory Tools and their relevancy in the PVA context From the discussion of variety of participatory tools and techniques, usage of different tools and their rationale is presented below in a summarized form:

Tools To whom Rationale Access mapping

Dalit, landless, nearly landless (only having Ghaderi), homeless (used to stay in masters house), women headed HH, disable (differently able people), flood and landslide victims, elderly people, other as specified by local people

Access to and control over the resources of various group of people

Time line Elderly people, local elites, Aguwa (traditional leaders)

Historical perspectives of vulnerability, marginalisation,

Trend analysis Dalit, landless, nearly landless (only having Ghaderi), homeless (used to stay in masters house), women headed HH, disable (differently able people), flood and landslide victims, elderly people, other as specified by local people

Causes and reasons of vulnerability, trend and its associated factors

KIIs School teachers, VDC officials, Politicians/social elites, Local money lenders, Aguwa (traditional leaders), Local traders, representative of

To draw personal feelings, opinion, ideas, present status, problem, coping mechanism, ways forward


development programs, widow, suffer from chronic disease and epidemic

FGDs Dalit, landless, nearly landless (only having Ghaderi), homeless (used to stay in masters house), women headed HH, disable (differently able people), flood and landslide victims, elderly people, other as specified by local people

Opinions on group basis, group specific problem, coping mechanism, ways forward

Venn diagram/ Stakeholders analysis

Dalit, landless, nearly landless (only having Ghaderi), homeless (used to stay in masters house), women headed HH

Institutional relationship, access of vulnerable people in both institutions and services

Transect walking

School teachers, VDC officials, Politicians/social elites, Local money lenders, Aguwa (traditional leaders), Local traders, representative of development programs, widow, suffer from chronic disease and epidemic

Verify the most disaster affected areas, coping strategies and needed action to mitigate disaster effects in long run

Case studies Case studies related disaster victims, trafficking, social-cultural phenomenon, disable and suffer from chronic disease and epidemic, access and control over natural resources, access in service providers and development programs

To explore in-depth analysis of a selected, critical phenomenon, activity or situation

Livelihood Analysis

Dalit, landless, nearly landless (only having Ghaderi), homeless (used to stay in masters house), women headed HH, disable (differently able people), flood and landslide victims, other as specified by local people

Stability, crisis and coping mechanism, relative income, expenditure, credit and debt)

It was agreed that PVA can be used in the following aspects:

Baseline information Conflict analysis Emergencies Gender analysis Power analysis, power dynamics, empowerment of the communities Building local capacity building Access power to demand right (advocacy)


13. Roll out of PVA Guidebook This session was facilitated by Ms Agnes and Mr Shyam. In their presentation, they highlighted that:

PPVVAA iiss aa ssyysstteemmaattiicc pprroocceessss IItt hheellppss iinn tthhee eexxaammiinnaattiioonn ooff vvuullnneerraabbiilliittyy IItt ccaann bbee lliinnkkeedd wwiitthh ddiissaasstteerr pprreeppaarreeddnneessss aanndd rreessppoonnssee ttoo lloonngg--tteerrmm

ddeevveellooppmmeenntt From the field work, baseline data can be generated, issue of vulnerability can be explored and causes and effects of each vulnerability issue can be identified. Mr Shyam also emphasised that PVA can encouraged different political parties to address their commitment in working for the reduction of peoples’ vulnerability. Political parties may use this tool during election campaign. Then, both Mr. Shyam and Ms. Agnes shared the major aspects of ToR as follows.

Fix baseline (mobilise the action plan) Map out the sources and root causes of vulnerability

o Jagatpur o Meghauli

Develop action plan to implement it jointly with partners, Advocate to influence and for monitoring and impact assessment. Tips for field work

o More issues to be explored from PRA and other relevant tools o All tools discussed may not be used o PVA is itself a structured process

Day III (November 16, 2005) 14. Sharing of Baseline data of Meghauli Village Area 77.18 sq. km River Narayani, Rapti Small river Betari, Laikhari Population 14372, male-7543, female – 6829 HHs 2618, population density 186.21

Ethnic composition Caste Percentage Brahmin 30 Chhetri 8 Newar 3 Gurung 3 Tharu 28 Kumal 10 Magar 1 Other 5


Population of Kumal Ward % 1 50 2 90 3 23 Religion Hindu 90%, Buddha 3% Other 7% Language Nepali : 70%, Tharu : 30% Education Literacy (Overall) 70% Female 60% Male 80% Social infrastructures Infrastructures NumberHigher Secondary School 1 High School 2 Lower Secondary School 1 Primary School 5Sub-Health Post 1 Number of HHs in Study Site Bote: 3 HHs Kumal: 43 HHs Total: 46 HHs The sources of livelihood of the people of study site included agriculture labour, sharecropping, rental farming and fishing. 15. Sharing of Baseline data of Jagatpur (Ghailaghari) Village Boundary East/South : Rapti River/Royal Chitwan National Park West : Sukranager North : Patiyani/Parbatipur Total Population : 800 Total HHs : 160


Ethnic Composition Janagati : 95% Dalit : 1% Other : 4% Name of Stakeholders working for disaster Anugraha Church : Pillar and roofing support to 26 HHs NRCS : Housing support for 40 HHs BZDC : Pillar and roofing materials RCNP : Partial support for housing NRUSEC initiatives till now

Distribution of relief Construction of housing,

management of toilet and safe drinking water

Formation of disaster relief committee

Monitoring of the measurement of flood

Management and use of Siren

Participants in the process of simulation process

Construction of public building for shelter (especially for displaced victims)

Construction of weir/intake Distribution of utensils and

torch light

Participants are in the process of allocating the job within the team After sharing of social-economic information of the two proposed village, Mr. Shyam shared the logistic planning for field work as follows:

Required materials to be prepared by each group


Vehicle arrangement (separate vehicle for each group)

Group division on the basis of interest

Defined roles and responsibilities within team members

Lunch at the field

Practice of key informant interview After logistics planning, Ms. Agnes shared the key activities to be carried out from field visit and tips from Guidebook, which were as follows:

An assessment of available resources within the village Key activity Tips

Process Recording Page 27 (of PVA Guidebook) FGD (women, youth, mixed) Page 28 Analytical steps (PRA and other tools) Finalize community analysis Representation from community & presentation needed Feedback to community By representative Reporting group Page 26,27,24 (of PVA Guidebook)


Then all the participants divided in to two groups on the basis of interest. The each group was given the separate task assuming the real field situation as practice.

Data in the process of summing up

The task for group A was to imagine an

Urban community with Problem of Slums and Squatters hit by Flood disaster of 1993

The task of group B was to imagine a

Rural community with Problem of Flood and Wildlife

Scope of Work for both groups Transect Walk

Map of the vulnerability sites (physical infrastructures, hazards, risks to environment, root causes of vulnerability)

An observation of soil erosion at river bank Focus Group Discussion

Resource available Who controls the resources How to access them during flood and Wildlife invasion


Venn diagram CBO, NGO, and INGO working in the area Types of capacity they have, resources they have and their relationship Collaboration/cooperation

SWOT Analysis

Analysis of finding Hazards, resources – (how the resources are used) Community actions ( of the past) Local, district and national efforts Indicators/outcome of M&E to follow-up

Situation Analysis

Who are the most vulnerable Types of exposure that they have experienced Prevalence and extent of vulnerability-hazard, risk, exposure (pp6 of PVA

Guidebook) Risk Hazard Mapping Use analytical framework 16. Presentation by Group B (Ideal situation of Gitanager village) Timeline Year (BS)

Major phenomenon

036 Migration, displaced people from landslide 037 Establishment of National park 052 Big flood, wildlife destroyed 16 houses 054 Huge flood, 30 houses collapsed, 5 dead, destruction

of physical assets 058 Destruction of physical assets from flood 059 Diarrhoea epidemic (5 children were dead, starvation,

increased the workload of women). Seasonal Calendar

Description Months J F M A M J Jul A Sep Oct Nov Dec

Flood Temporary Migration

Wildlife Problem Epidemic

Problem Tree Causes:

Heavy flood devastated the physical properties


Inadequate support Lack of rehabilitation Negligence of government Damage of hum pipe Lack of alternative livelihood

Effects:

Increased poverty Conflicts/disputes HIV/AIDS explosion Flood threatening Vibrant youth force migrated Epidemics Powerlessness

Well-being Ranking Well-being HHs Indicators Well-off 5 CGI roof, Job, vendor shop, livestock, involved in

CBOs/NGOs, have facility of drinking water and toilet. Medium 5 Thatched roof, skilled labour, have only latrine, some

livestock Poor 2 Thatched poor house, unskilled labour, depend upon the

public tap for drinking water Ultra-poor 6 Landless, dalit, have no source of income, seasonal

migration to India, wage labour FGD with Women

Most of the families are displaced from flood People migrated to cities and India seasonally to earn livelihood Only women, children and aged people are in the village Most of the children left their school because of the family problem The middlemen are active in girls trafficking Women are compelled to involve in prostitution so suffer from HIV/AIDS Women headed household unable to get neighbours’ support People are deprived from pure drinking water and toilet facilities Theft, dacoit and domestic violence is increasing decision making process is dominated by male Most of the youth are suffering from bad habits


SWOT Analysis Strength

Strong family structure Have facility of school/Health

Post Social organizations are

formed Weakness

Lack of awareness, employment, land and sanitation

Participants in the process of synthesis of data Opportunities

Strong political parties Number of development organizations

working in the area Threats

Eviction, trafficking, and domestic violence

A process of action plan formulation

Action Plan for (Jan-July ’05) Proposed Activities Months Responsibilities Collect baseline data January Community + NGO Capacity building of CBDP February Community + NGO Provide legal support to claim rights March Community + NGO Implement IGG/skill development training April Community + NGO River training April-June Actionaid Nepal Awareness for right based approach June-July Community + NGO Community plantation June-July DDC + Community

17. Presentation of Group A Analysis of problem from Problem Tree Causes

Deforestation


Negligence of government Lack of proper plan Lack of awareness Weak organizational efforts Poverty/dominance of ultra-poor Unequal distribution of resources Negligence of National Park No proper enforcement of

rules/regulation of Park Group presentation Effects:

Destruction of physical asset and human life Human life usually threatened by Wildlife Crop damaged by wildlife Destruction/collapse of physical infrastructure (Bridge, HP, School) Erosion of productive land Explosion of epidemic Children deprived from education Inadequate facilities of drinking water

Seasonal Calendar


Flood Epidemic Eviction Food deficiency

Timeline Year (BS)

Major phenomenon

052 Settlement started, government tried to displace people but failed, occurrence of big flood

053 Flood damaged 2 houses, 2 people died, NRCS supported the relief materials 055 Got assurance from political leaders to support flood victims, 5 set of gabion

wires obtained 058 Explosion of diarrhoea and epidemic, 5 children died, 3 women trafficked by

middlemen 060 7 houses destroyed by flood, death of 1 pregnant woman, flood swept livestock,

and 2 people died of HIV/AIDS 062 Community organization formed to tackle with disaster and to claim rights.


Venn Diagram

Hirapur Community

LSC RCNP

NRUSEC

Club

Hirapur Group

BZMC

Lalupate Group

DD

Schoo

HP


Action Plan Major problem

Resources Initiative till now Future action plan (at local level)

Future action plan (at national level)

Flood and Eviction because of wildlife

School, HP, land, Local Institution, Skilled manpower, Forest, Pond, River

Make bhakari made up of the bamboo to use as gabion

Sand sack Family saving Emergency fund Plantation Coordination

between local institution and other stakeholders,

Use of knowledge and skills

Formation of organization/ group

Awareness campaign RBA orientation Pressure group formation Linkage with local level

institutions Skill development Construction of safe

habitat Income generation Relation between land -

owner and community Use REFLECT and

CIRCLE approaches

Formulation of laws, policies & strategies

Pressure and advocacy

Network building and Linkage

Rapport building with organizations

Advocacy for social justice

Day IV (November 17, 2005) 18. Planning for Fieldwork by Group B

Welcome/objective : Chhabilal Lead facilitator : Indra Jyoti Reporters : Ved + Bimal Observers : Dhruba + Rajesh

Key Tools

Transect walk+ mapping : Deepak Poudel FGD : Mixed – Bisheshwor and Damodar

Women – Amrita and Subhala Venn diagram: Rajendra and Raj Kumar

The key Step adopted by Group A in the field

Allocation of job within the group (transect walk group and FGD group) Departure for field Reach at Ghailaghari Observation of dam at Rapti River, River Training supported by Caritas Nepal Observation of work initiated by Caritas Nepal for disaster preparedness Have lunch and depart for Dibyanagar Have discussion with community people and gather information Entry into Dibyanagar village (VDC) Local people were gathered at the initiation of NRUSEC Prona Pratap and Sobhina shared about the PVA Transect walk


Venn exercise was done with women group Men group prepared seasonal calendar

The key Step adopted by Group B in the field • Departure for field • Informal discussion with

Majhuwatar Community • Site visit of most affected part by

flood • Welcome and objective sharing • Use of different tools and

techniques for collection of information

• Synthesis of the informationParticipants are on the way to village Day V (November 18, 2005) All the information collected with the help of PVA tools and techniques were analysed to make an action plan with the help of community people. Then the product was shared in the plenary session. 19. The presentation of Group A Timeline Year (BS) Major phenomenon 018 Settlement started 026 First land survey 028 First flood experienced, flooding problem occurred 045/46 People displaced from flood 050 20 houses were displaced, epidemic exploded 052 42 houses were displaced 059 River cutting at the head reach part of Hirapur 062 Drought (production/yield decreased)

Problem Tree Causes:

Lack of awareness No fencing in the national park No plantation No adoption of sustainable approach for river training No work on time Unorganized community Settlements are very near from park Concerned stakeholders are not serious

Effects:


Problem of flood and wild animals Inadequate facilities of education and health Displacement of settlement Soil erosion of productive land Destruction of roads and bridges Poor facility of drinking water Food deficiency Inadequate local employment

Seasonal calendar:


Flood Wildlife victims Fire

Majuwatar Community

Environmental Service Centre

CMC

BZMC

CDO

Flood Struggle

Disaster Prevention

VDC

PCP/RCNP

DDC

School

DIO

HP

Drinking Water Committee


Action Plan Problem

Resources

Initiative undertaken Future Plan (Local Level) Future Plan (Local Level)

Flood

Stones, boulders, sand

Gabion wire collected by local people

People’s contribution

Support from BZ

Community building

Community forest, community groups

NRUSEC Pasture land Support

from DDC

Collection of boulders, labour mobilization

Allocated budget from BZ and DDC

Plantation, making of trenches

Compensation for crop damage and killing of domestic animal from BZMC

Amount received for fencing

Primary health care from NRUSEC

Establishment of emergency fund

Loan distribution for IG

Awareness campaign for education

Relief collection for fire victims

Disaster management training to group members

Formulation of committee and capacity building

Awareness raising program

Share RBA to the people

Orientation program (process of compensation, safety from disaster and wildlife, relief)

Pressure group Contact with local level

stakeholder Expansion of

coordination and linkage

Skill promotion program

Income generating activities

Arrangement for safety settlement

Establish good relationship between landlords and landless

Fencing in BZ area Promotion of

alternative energy Right based approach

training Communication and

transportation

Pressure group for policy formulation and implementation

Networking and linkage among the institutions

Advocacy for social justice

Arrangement of budget on time

Extension of networking and linkages among UNDP, HMG and AAN

Formulation of Master plan and pressure for implementation

Advocacy for land registration certificate campaign

Wildlife Health Fire

20. The presentation of Group B Timeline Year (BS) Major Phenomenon 2011 Narayani mixed with Rapti River 2017 Construction of Tribeni weir 21 Establishment of Royal Chitwan National Park 36 Construction of bamboo Bhakari 47 Flood in Rapti River 33 Misbehaved by Army Personnel 42 Construction of road 28 Construction of Meghauli Airport


37 Establishment of high school 50 Big flood 51 Facility of telephone 53,54,59,60 Erosion of agriculture land

FGD

Problem of flood and river cutting Problem of wild animals Epidemic The services available from RCNP is not enough Destruction of human life and agriculture land from Rapti and Narayani Rivers RNCP restricted people to enter in the forest for the collection of wood, grass, fodder,

grazing animals Flooding problems Sources of livelihood (wage labour and sharecropping other’s land) Women are mostly overloaded (heavy workload) Bad practices (alcoholism and gambling) Most adopt traditional agriculture patterns Rate of interest varies from 60-100% Youth are migrated to other countries like India, UAE and Dubai Have strong socio-religious practices Social unity, equal participation, religious unity and a culture of helping each other at the

time of crises in the community Have toilet and common tap from drinking water Women have many disease problem (uterus and STD) Women mostly used the temporary means of family planning Women have access to and control over the physical assets but land registration

certificate is mostly in the name of men Education

Poor literacy status Mostly children are going to school People are poor so they were unable to invest for good quality of education Dalit have less access in education Disaster victims are most affected

Mobility Mapping Aspects Mobility of people in the chronological order Disaster Jitpur school, Meghauli school Employment Within village, Bharatpur, Pokhara, Hetauda, India, Dubai Education Within village, Meghauli, Bharatpur, Dibyanager, Kathmandu Loan From neighbour, private money lender, Jitpur, SFDP Health Dhami/lama (traditional healers), sub-health post, Bharatpur,

Kathmandu Marriage Within village, Sishabas, Jogitol, Nabalparasi, Butwal


Seasonal Calendar


Crop damage by wildlife

Flood Problem from RCNP

Food deficiency Loan

SWOT Analysis Strength

People are hard working and honest Strong family structure Have strong community organization Construction of Machan Facility of drinking water and sanitation

Weakness

Bad habit of alcoholism Problem from flood/wildlife No skilled manpower Inadequate resources No river training work to save productive land

Opportunities

Support from social organizations Support from BZMC

Threats

Flood control Coordination with Buffer zone Victims from wildlife Unemployment STD/HIV/AIDS Inadequate facilities of education and health

Action Plan What:

How to do these

When

Who is Responsible

For the displaced families

Organize interaction program to get timely compensation

Organize delegation

Make an interaction program among local level institutions for ideas/experience sharing and creating pressure

November to August

Natural disaster management committee

Advocacy committee

Community development


to draw stakeholders’ attention time to time

Organize district level interaction program

Organize awareness campaign in the participation of pressure committee, disaster committee and activist

Interaction program among Journalist federation, media people and stakeholders

Organize district level communication network

Collect bounders in the initiations of BZMC and RCNP

Organize discussion between victims of both flood and wildlife

Organize pressure group in the close coordination with BZ support unit

Create pressure to open forest at least 15 days in a year

committee Actionaid Nepal Media Network Journalist

Federation NRUSEC Stakeholders

For the insecure people

Provide advocacy and refresher training to disaster committee

Establish early warning system

Collect boulders For river cutting

Build capacity of community organisations

For the RCNP victims

Create pressure group to fight against wildlife

Make pressure group for hay cutting

Day VI (November 19, 2005) 21. Analysis from both group presentations From the presentation of both groups and issues and concerned raised by the participants in the plenary session, it can be inferred that:

The vulnerability situation depends on family, community and hazards. Due to the socio-economic condition and lack of awareness among the people of the community, they are not been able to face these hazards, so there condition is being vulnerable day by day. As the hazard is increasing, vulnerability is also increasing due to the multiple effects of the previous hazards.


Hazards related to vulnerability also depend on the availability of foods. The vulnerability is found more prevailing in the period of food scarcity then during the availability of food. It is also seen that there is a strong relation between hazards, vulnerability and poverty. The poverty is found to be the major cause of vulnerability. And the poverty is the consequences of hazards.

Ex-DDC member in the process of his presentation

Those people who are not able to manage the destruction right after the disaster

by their own resources are vulnerable, i.e. they cannot face the disaster. Those whose livelihood is fluctuated by the disaster or who can not manage the disaster by their own efforts. Similarly, those people do not fall under vulnerable category who can easily face the disaster or who are able to rehabilitate by their own resources after disaster.

From the discussion, it was found that the major causes of physical vulnerability are as follows.

o Presence of the settlement area, buildings, arable lands physical infrastructures and necessary services in disaster prone areas.

o Lack of alternative livelihood resources. o Lack of access and control over the production of resources. o Dependence on elites and well-off people. o Lack of enough foodstuffs. o Lack of necessary education, skills and capacity. o Lack of basic services such as education, health-related services, drinking

water, sanitation, roads, electricity, and communication facilities etc. o Diseases and epidemic.

Similarly, the major causes of socio-economic vulnerability are as follows.

o Weak family lineage structure. o Lack of leadership qualities. o Unpractical decision-making process. o Unequal access to legal and treatments services. o Lack of access to political services. o Weak community based institutions. o Orthodox thinking towards change and modernizations. o Dependent with others, belief on fate and lack of unity and coordination. o Lack of enough knowledge about threats and risk. o Lack of enough resources for rehabilitation. o Weak social harmony and cooperation. o Gender and caste discrimination.


o No access to information. o No preparedness plans and strategies. o Erosion of agriculture land by flood o Standing crop submerged for several days o Collapse of thatched house and loss of lives of livestock and family

members In the plenary session, prioritisation of vulnerability is shared as follows

Poverty and poorness No sustainable means of resources to cope with livelihoods No unity and network of the disaster victims Not effective mitigation measures during disaster Poor capacity of community to fight against the disaster Lack of proper preparedness and mitigation plans on time

Needed action to cope with vulnerability

Need advance planning and preparation Increase the capacity of the people and mobilise internal resources Manage the external resources to cope with the problems. Stop extraction of stone, sand from the river. They are also causes for the disaster

inviting the vulnerability situation. Availability of the information about warning system and advance forecasting. Management of secure place to rehabilitate people and cattle. Increase leadership quality; provide vocational skills and techniques to seek the

alternative income source. Management of temporary shelter in advance.

22. Learning and Sharing Both the groups were assigned with the task of commenting on following issues:

How to use PVA process to ensure community participation Linkage of PVA to emergencies, reduction of vulnerabilities and long-term

developing efforts Linkage of PVA to RBA works

o Awareness of rights o Capacity building to enhance networking and advocacy work of NGOs/CBOs

Emergence of PVA in rights and advocacy at all levels-local, national and international

Group A 1. Working with the community as per the free time of community.

Work as a facilitator Hurry in finishing the work rather than problem identification Unable to explore all issues of community It was realised to have matured people while visiting the community It is better to convey message 2 days earlier for more participation of people

2. It was realised from the field work that PVA is also feasible apart from the disaster


3. The linkage of RBA with PVA is beneficial with each aspects of human life. Group B 1.

Use of appropriate tools in local context Facilitating organization should build the rapport with the communities before

PVA exercise PVA should be interlinked with scientific research to ensure community

participation 2.

PVA is a continuous process PVA enhances indigenous knowledge and its dissemination Root cause analysis and analysis of power dynamics is possible through PVA PVA aware communities on human rights persecutors PVA establishes macro-micro linkages

23. Summing up

The PVA process is designed to help the community analyse their own situation. During a PVA, data collection, analysis and action emanating from the analysis

are all conducted with the community. Moreover, there is no further analysis done by external facilitators alone where communities are not involved.

The PVA process uses a variety of other sources such as secondary information and interviews with other institutions. Information obtained from these sources has to be included in the discussions with the community during a PVA.

Good facilitation techniques are required to ensure a successful PVA. The tools for data collection, analysis and planning create a framework for the facilitators and the community to discuss.

In some cases the topics are personal and individuals may feel uncomfortable sharing such deep-seated issues in public. In such cases it is important to discuss with particular groups separately through focus group discussion.

To draw the attention of illiterate people, use of pictorial tools and techniques are very much important.

To ensure a successful PVA, adequate preparation in advance is required. 24. Closing Formalities Jay Mangal Kumal (Ex- DDC Member) Workshop is helpful to guide the community and if the action plan is implemented, there is an opportunity to get 16,000,000/- from BZMC. Role of civil society and community organizations is essential to learn from each other to pressurize NPC to incorporate relevant policies.


Shanti Maya Kumal (Flood Victim Struggle Committee Secretary) People are very committed to generate local resources if external supports are in hand. People are willing to contribute to the work to reduce the degree of impact on the victims. Gun Bahadur Kumal (Flood Victim Struggle Committee member) The program was very informative. We were able to learn more from team and share our experiences Our observation is true that wound of disaster is on the head first. If external agencies pay attention, local people are ready to render their services as and when needed. Agnes Campbell (AAI TG Facilitator) We have been learning and sharing from each other. All of you have good resources, the local knowledge of the community. I hope you learnt about PRA tools for PVA and found that PVA is not new approach. It is a process to transfer the knowledge to the community. I am excited to include Nepali’s case study in PVA Guide Book Krishna Basaula, Partner NGO NRUSEC Chitwan We have learnt the basic concept of PVA, community orientation for PVA, and we are able to apply 4 steps given in the guidebook. PVA will be useful to explore reliable primary information. With the field study, we were able to know the context of vulnerability of Meghauli, Jagatpur and Dibyanager and learnt that PVA was easy to identify the flood and wildlife issues and for the empowerment of rights. Chhabi Neupaney Partner NGO CDO Chitwan PVA has increased to analyse the vulnerability of people. Cooperation and networking is essential to maximize PVA exercise. Sita Karki, Partner NGO WCDF Makwanpur Training was fruitful and we have learnt that PVA was very effective tool. I would like to thank all facilitators. Indra Poudel, Partner NGO VDRC Nawalparasi With this training, I am encouraged to apply the knowledge gained and skills developed in the actual field. Our responsibility has increased. This needs to be dealt as a cross cutting issue and by eliminating its limitations and weaknesses, PVA need to be practised as a helpful technique. Knowledge on participatory tools and techniques is essential for PVA. It is useful for the planning process as well.


Shyam Sunder Jnavaly, ActionAid Nepal, CRC Bharatpur Participants studied two communities as student. I would like to thank you all for allowing the participants to learn a lot from communities. With your support, participants are enriched by the nature of disaster and vulnerability and experience of coping strategies in the field. I would also like to thank CDO and NRUSEC for feeding much information to the participants. AAN is willing to support the community’s initiatives in right based approach, in learning and sharing of emerging issues and in advocacy campaigns. We request you to work as PVA ambassadors.


Annex


Annex-1: Schedule DAY I Time Session/Topics Lead Resource Person/(s) Welcome/Introduction Shyam Sundar Jnavaly Overview of the Workshop Agnes Campbell Expectations and Ground Rules Deepak Poudel and Dhruba

Gautam Tea Break Logistic supports Krishna Acharya Discussion and develop common

understanding of PVA terminology and Translations

Dhruba Gautam

Lunch Facilitation Skills Amrita Sharma and

Madhavi Pradhan Group work

-

Discussion on Participatory Tools and Techniques

PRA Synthesis of Participatory Tools and

their relevancy in the PVA context Shyam Sundar Jnavaly and Agnes Campbell

DAY II Time Session/Topics Lead Resource Person/(s) Recap Assessment of Power Analysis Group REFLECT Ram Dayal Yadav Stepping Stones Sunmita Mathema Conflict Analysis Anil Pant Gender Analysis Bimal Gadal Right Based approach, Social Inclusion

and Power Analysis Maneesh Pradhan

Synthesis of Participatory Tools and their relevancy in the PVA context

Shyam Sundar Jnavaly and Agnes Campbell

The Roll Out of PVA Guide PVA

Situation Analysis Framework Agnes Campbell

DAY III Time Session/Topics Lead Resource Person/(s) Recap Background Information of Meghuli Chhabi Background Information of Jagatpur Krishna Tea


Logistics and planning for field work Shyam Sundar Jnavaly Group division and task allocation Lunch Group work Presentation and discussion Wrap-up DAY IV Time Session/Topics Lead Resource Person/(s) Basic preparation at Bharatpur for field

work

Field work at Meghali Group B Field work at Meghali Group A DAY V Time Session/Topics Lead Resource Person/(s) Information synthesis and make an

action plan

Presentation of both groups DAY VI Time Session/Topics Lead Resource Person/(s) Summing up Closing formalities


Annex-2: Name of the Participants S# Name Designation / Address Remarks 1 Bimal Gadal PSO, CRC Bharatpur 2 Ram Dayal Yadav PSO, ERC Biratnagar 3 Subala Subba PSO, WRC Nepalgunj 4 Damodar Kanel FS ThL, CRC Bharatpur 5 Rajesh Hamal P&G SThL WRC Nepalgunj 6 Sujeeta Mathema EDN SThL, KCO 7 Anil Pant HSGT TL KCO 8 Maneesh G Pradhan UP SThL/SIAO, KCO 9 Raj Kumar Trikhatri SThL, ERC Biratnagar 10 Krishna C Acharya AFA, CRC Bharatpur 11 Balaram Luitel DDC, Chitwan 12 Navaraj Bote CDO Chitwan 13 Rajendra Paudel Sarad Samaj, Kapilvastu 14 Prona Pratap KC ThL, HURADEC 15 Sitaram Chaudhary ThL, Sarad Samaj Kapilvastu 16 Chhabilal Neupane CDO Chitwan 17 Janak Sharma Bee Group Nepalgunj 18 Indra Jyoti Paudel VDRC Nawalparasi 19 Arvind Pattel Change Activist, Sarlahi 20 Sita Karki Change Activist, Makwanpur 21 Dipak Lamichhane Change Activist, Chitwan 22 Ved Giri, Change Activist, Rupandehi 23 Sobina Lama Lumanti, Lalitpur 24 Krishna Basaula NRUSEC Chitwan 25 Ram Shingh Yadav DIMAN Dhanusha 26 Madhawi Pradhan FSCN Rupandehi 27 Amrita Sharma WCDF Makwanpur 28 Visheswar Neupane NGOCC CFONDM Chitwan 29 Dipak Paudel DPNet Kathmandu 30 Dhruba Raj Gautam DPNet Kathmandu 31 Shyam Sundar Jnavaly SThL EDM CRC Bharatpur 32 Agnes Campbell AA The Gambia Resource Person


Annex- 3: UNDERSTANDING OF PRA AA’s working definition of PRA: “a development approach that enables communities to analyse their present circumstances, come up with possible solutions that are translated into an action plan in a participatory way”. Other PRA common definitions were:

A set of tools or approaches used to enable communities to analyse, present and share knowledge to help them develop Community Action Plans.

A means of empowering communities. PRA is a working tool to generate useful information at grassroots level. A need assessment tool that brings together communities and development workers to identify

community problems and possible solutions; A field methodology in which community problems are identified by the people themselves in a

participatory manner; Flexible learning process which encompasses a set of tools conducted in a community by a multi

disciplinary team in collaboration with communities to generate information on rural life, natural resources, problems and opportunities.

UNDERSTANDING OF PRA TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

The most commonly PRA Tools and techniques utilized for PVA are: Vulnerability Mapping in the Community The Venn Diagram to map Village Institutions and its linkages to emergencies Livelihood asset mapping to indicate the following: Wealth Ranking: Human Capital, Social Capital, Natural Capital, Physical Capital, and Financial

Capital Focus Group Discussion, Seasonal Calendar, Time Line, Trend Line and Matrix Scoring. The Problem tree Analysis Cobweb –map out community capacities- measures status of risks and hazards-scoring these risk

factors and ranking them to develop intervention plans-community action and mobilization of resources for intervention.

Vulnerability Mapping is useful to showing the layout of a community and indication of sites that exposes communities to risks, hazards and potential disasters. The community perception and identification of these risks, hazards and situations that expose communities to disasters are important. Using the following PRA tools can help the vulnerability mapping process:

Undertake a transect walk with communities before the PVA in the communities to identify the above. Find out who is exposed to each identified hazard and risk-the levels of vulnerability,

Develop in depth analysis of vulnerability situations-Use Time Line, Trend Line and Matrix Scoring map out the hazards, the time they occur, frequency and trends-including changes over time.

The benefits are:


Increasing communities’ awareness of the location of existing structures, resources and resources, including areas that exposure people to problems.

Providing social and demographic information of the communities easily and in a concise manner.

It determining and planning the best location for social facilities and services such as seed stores, water points as well as for waste disposal sites.

Providing information on structures, resources and their location in the communities. Disadvantages of mapping

It raises expectations in the community Maps drawn by communities are sometimes very difficult to follow due to low map sketching

skills of communities The exercise takes a lot of time to complete, especially in large communities

The Transect Walk is used to identify the topography, different land types, vegetation and land uses in the communities. Twenty-three CDWs could not state the purpose of the transect walk either because they have never used it or because they don’t know how to use it.

Participants in the transect walk Advantages of the Transect Walk were indicated as follows:

Increases communities’ awareness about village land, farmland, forest cover, tree species, uses of soil types and the problems and solutions to certain activities practised in the community.

It helps to identify community problems of land tenure system. It increases communities’ awareness on complex environment issues.

According to some staff the disadvantages were:

It is too tiresome, tedious, time consuming and sometimes difficult to gather information about environment and,

It is sometimes not clear to the community the information they are looking for. Venn Diagrams are used in PRA for showing villages and their linkages. Venn Diagrams are used for knowing existing institutions in the community whilst another said it is used to show number and the most active groups in village. Thus they reported that Venn Diagrams are used to explore organisational issues within the community and their linkages with other organisations.


Venn Diagrams, according to the staff have a number of advantages, these are: It increases communities knowledge of different institutions in the community and helps in

identifying linkages with their development partners; It helps in encouraging group formation and can easily show the leadership structures of a group.

Some staff reported that using Venn Diagrams has disadvantages such as:

It may provide confusing results where local institutions are known by more than one name. It may not show the difference or problems that exist between institutions It is difficult to organise groups It is difficult for the community to determine the institutional linkages among groups and with

other organisations. Most staff seemed to have been using Resource / Wealth Ranking in routine work. Some POs/Specialists perceived wealth/resource ranking to be the most useful tool for identifying and targeting the poor in the communities. The advantages of resource/wealth ranking, according to these staff members were:

Information collected on poverty status is useful in targeting and for planning poverty alleviation programmes based on community indicators.

It easily provides information on the communities’ criteria or definition of poor and non-poor households.

It provides information on poverty levels as well as on the characteristics of poor households.

The difficulties associated with the use of Resource/Wealth Ranking as indicated by the staff are that:

Households may be wrongly classified by key informants

It is time consuming.

Key informant interview Focus Group Discussion (FGD), is not a new phenomenon in the communities. FGD, according to 33 of the staff it is generally used for collecting information about specific processes over time. According to some CDWs, it is often used for getting the views, opinions and perceptions of a community.


The main advantages of the technique were that:

Communities are comfortable with it and it could be easily done even with one facilitator. It provides opportunities for every community member to express their opinions freely about community needs.

Village level meeting

The difficulties/disadvantages associated with the technique were:

Some community members, women children and strangers do not participate fully when the discussion is held in big mixed group.

It is sometimes difficult to agree on some important issues.

A small group of village elders, rich men and intellectuals normally dominate the whole discussion.

Local people are interacting with participants

The discussion sometimes deviates from the topic to other issues of interest to the community members.

Seasonal Calendar is another PRA tool that is widely used by staff and in cases, the technique is used to determine changes in various activities over time. Some POs/Specialists also indicated that calendars are used to identify appropriate time and types of crops cultivated and to help in determining labour supply and demand over time. Using Seasonal Calendar by the staff has, according to them, advantages such as:

It is easy to collect information on activities in the year. It increases community awareness of problems affecting them as well as on the timing of local

seasons. It makes planning and implementation of community projects easy. Information on labour availability, level of food supplies and disease prevalence in the

community is readily obtained.


Difficulties associated with Seasonal Calendar were:

Difficulties for community members to agree on the timing of local seasons. Communities find it difficult to match local season and calendar months.

Matrix Scoring/Ranking is often used for prioritising problems in order of importance to the community. Advantages of the techniques as mentioned were that:

It is an easy way of obtaining information on community priority problems. Information could be obtained on the communities’ criteria for choosing a particular thing

among many things. The information generated is very useful in project identification and planning.

Common difficulties associated with the techniques were:

a lot of time spent in conducting it and, Problems sometimes encountered in getting communities to agree on the most important

problem The staff seemed to have common view on the purpose of using Timeline/Historical Profile as a technique for providing historical of the communities. Advantages mentioned were:

It provides interesting information about the communities. Past events of great importance to the community are discussed and thus provide an opportunity

for youth and development agencies to learn more about the history of the village. Some of the disadvantages/problems mentioned were:

Difficulty in remembering events or when they exactly occurred. Participation of youths and stranger is limited by their knowledge of the history of the village.

Even if youths have a reasonable knowledge of events, tradition may not allow them to talk about the history of the village when elders are around.

Staff seemed to have a good understanding of the purpose of the tools. Based on their field experiences, interesting advantages and disadvantages were also attributed to the various tools. What was generally lacking is the recognition of the fact that tools could and should be used flexibly and that a combination of tools can be used as well. Whilst many advantages of PRA tools were mentioned, the fact that it could be time consuming and raise expectations were repeatedly mentioned as disadvantages. In spite of the associated problems, staff generally believed that PRA has made some impact in the communities:

Increased level of awareness on development issues High level of participation Reduced dependency and ability to mobilise own resources Communities exposed to other development players


Annex-4: Conflict Analysis Background ActionAid’s policy on conflict emphasises that in-depth analysis is a necessary precondition for engagement in conflict situations. This analysis must be comprehensive and strategic even if the project being considered is local and limited. This paper presents a methodology for such conflict analysis by ActionAid. It is based on ActionAid’s requirements for processes that are-

• People-based • Decentralised –they include local dimensions • Rights-based

The concept of human security has been used because it meets these requirements. It puts poor people at the centre of the analysis and focuses not only on their security but also on their perceptions of security. This does not mean that the analysis is limited to local people only. It is vital to consider national, regional and international perspectives also. But their voice is central to the analysis and their role in addressing conflict issues is emphasised. The process should empower local people by increasing their understanding, strengthening their capacity to respond and increasing their influence on the wider world. The methodology is not intended for use by expert teams but as a participatory process in which a wide range of stakeholders can be engaged through workshops and discussions. It can be used in many different ways and by combining different levels of analysis together ActionAid can create a ‘framework’ of understanding rather than a single viewpoint. The methodology can be used as the basis for a one-day workshop in the capital, in a small town or at village level. All these perceptions must come together if a full framework is to be made. The methodology is designed to be extremely flexible. Parts of it can be reduced and others expanded depending on the context. The language can be adapted not only to reflect cultural differences but also sensitivities about words like ‘conflict’ and ‘violence’. The assumptions underlying the methodology derive from the extensive research that has already led to systems of conflict analysis for DFID and UNDP. They are-

• Each conflict is unique and generic models should be avoided • Conflict arises from tensions between structural issues • Conflict is exacerbated by those with interests in conflict • Development must do more than ‘do no harm’. It must maximise impact. • Responses should be strategic • Responses should be based on people’s capabilities


The Methodology The process of Conflict Analysis has three stages1-

THREE STAGES OF ANALYSIS

Stage One: Causes of Conflict Step 1.1.: Structural Causes. If the analysis is to be strategic it should focus on the long-term structural issues rather than day-to-day events. Sometimes conflict appears to focus around an issue such as ethnicity when really the underlying cause is unequal access to resources or political corruption. The first step is to list the issues that cause conflict, or in the case of a pre-conflict situation list the factors that may lead to conflict. These causes or factors can then be analysed on a matrix. Table 1: Causes of Conflict Matrix

1 Much of the methodology is derived from DFID’s published approach to Strategic Conflict Assessment. See ‘Conducting Conflict Assessments: Guidance Notes’. ActionAid acknowledges DFID’s generosity in making this methodology available for adaptation.

Type of Security

Physical Political Economic Social

International Regional

Stage 1

Causes • Causes • Dynamics • Models • Scenarios

Stage 2

Responses

• General concerns • Development roles • Formal peace processes

Stage 3

Ways Forward

• Strategic

conclusions • Programme and

advocacy responses


By dividing the causes into different sectors and levels it should become much easier to see how they interact with each other and what are the key issues. If possible try to identify three key issues that lie at the heart of the problem and present them as a triangle, interacting with each other. This could possibly lead towards identifying a single key ‘root’ to the problem. Step 1.2.: Dynamics. What might increase these threats? The next step is to look for the forces that are driving the conflict. All too often there are actors who use conflict to pursue their own interests. Take the main issues identified in Step 1 and now map out the interests of key actors and look for possible reactions from other groups- Table 2: Dynamics Actors Interests Reactions Key Issue Issue 2 Issue 3 Step 1.3.: Models. The most difficult part of the CDA process is to develop a model of conflict dynamics. There is considerable flexibility in the system at this point. Go back to the triangle of key issues and see how they are moving in relation to each other and what interests are driving them on. As conflict develops the model may becomes more circular and can even lead into spirals in which the dynamics of conflict are little more than actions and reactions. For example- Figure: Conflict Circle Issues

Interests

Conflict Reactions

Reactions The purpose of conflict models is to start thinking about how the processes that make conflict worse can be reversed.

National Sub-national Local


Step 1.4.: Scenarios. If the intention is to start preventive programmes or set up Early Warning systems we will need to know what are the situations that might be threatening. First of all think of the events that would seriously alter the situation for the worse –they can be called Triggers. Elections and peace talks are common possibilities. One way of doing this is to add them on to Table 2. Very often such Triggers set off old problems. So it is useful to think back over the past history of conflict. This can lead to a Scenario Table as follows- Table 3: Scenarios History Actors Interests Reactions Trigger Key Issue Issue 2 Issue 3

Stage Two: Current Responses The aim of this section is to map out what is already happening in response to conflict, especially in terms of people’s capacities and issues relating to the development sphere. Step 2.1.: Concerns and Capacities. Begin by mapping out the positive concerns of those who have an influence on conflict and also the capacities of those affected. To create a full framework this will need to include the international organisations, government, civil society, development organisations and local communities. Divide these concerns into Security, Political, Economic and Social issues (as in the Causes Matrix). The objective is to see what organisations are already engaged with conflict and in the next section see how AA might influence other organisations to take a more active and focused role in relation to conflict. This can be done in relation to conflict in general but if this makes too big an exercise focus on the key issues identified in Stage One.

Table 4: Concerns and Capacities (with examples)

Key Issues

Actors Security Concerns & Capacities

Political Economic Social

Criminal-political

International


connections Regional National Sub-national Uncorrupted

courts, police complaint system

Elections to district bodies

Legitimate industry wish to deter criminals

Tribe/clan leadership able to resist political pressure

Local Local militias Links to government

Cooperative groups

Women’s organisation

Step 2.2.: Conflict and Development. Because it is our main area of focus we are particularly interested in development organisations. So the next step is to focus on development, dividing the activities and programmes that are ‘around’, ‘in’ and ‘on’ conflict. For example-

Table 5: Conflict and Development

Actors Around Conflict In Conflict On Conflict

UN Area development project

Immunisation project Peace-building project

Donors Fishing project Micro-finance project Cross-border linking project

IFIs Macro-economic policy

PRSP

NGOs Sustainable livelihoods project

Peace-building programmes

Step 2.3.: Development and Peace. The next step is to consider formal peace processes and negotiations, with a particular focus on the role of development. This is done under the following categories-

• Track One: formal peace negotiations • Track Two: informal support to peace negotiations • Track Three: development in support of peace

This results in a simple table-

Table 6: Tracks for Peace Track One Track Two Track Three


Stage Three: Ways Forward

At this point we have to bring together the analysis of the problem (Stage One) with the analysis

of current solutions (Stage Two) and see how they match together.

Step 3.1.: Refer back to the three issues, or less, that were identified as the key root causes. Now

try to state a single aim that would address the problem.

Step 3.2.: Now go right back to the Causes Matrix (Table 1) at the beginning and look at it

alongside the Table that showed the Concerns and Capacities (Table 4). Underline the activities

that are absolutely central to the Aim. Then fill in the other boxes with responses that are needed

to fill the gaps.


This will generate a comprehensive strategy for all actors.

Table 7: What needs to be done? (with examples)

Security Political Economic Social

International Deploy peace-keeping forces

Balance superpower interests around conflict

Address global trade restrictions

Control external fundamentalist pressure

Regional Limit incursions Balance interests of neighbours

Make trade agreements

Provide guarantees to regional minorities

National Control interests of the military

Improve governance

Control political links to organised crime

Provide guarantees to minorities

Sub-national Bring warlords Into talks

Decentralisation Address regional disparities

Address causes of migration

Local Address human rights abuses

Limit co-option of local leaders

Micro-finance programmes

Reduce drug-taking

Step 3.3.: Then pick out the parts of the full programme that AA itself could undertake and also

the areas where AA would have scope for advocacy work. Put all that together on a separate

Table (like the one above) and this would summarise the strategic responses for AA.

Think carefully also about what local communities can do for themselves and make sure that the

strategy takes these into account.

Analysis at different levels and in different places can be brought together into a Human Security

Framework integrating local, national and international perceptions.


Annex-5 Social Inclusion, Right Based Approach and Power analysis:


The Actionaid International Rights Based Approach

The historical evolution of Actionaid International from a relief and a service based organization to a development one and to one that has a Rights Based Approach (RBA) as a normative policy is well established. This major organizational change over time positions Actionaid International to play an active and important role as part of a sustained effort that challenges the growing poverty and inequality in the world. In a lecture at the India International Centre in June, Ramesh Singh, Actionaid’s International Executive Director, added an important framing aspect to Actionaid’s International evolution from a relief organization at its start to one that now places a rights based approach front and center. He stated clearly that effective development, human rights and social movement organizations are at an important coming together that leads to a synergy for initiating actions that establish public agendas in an international setting. This critical frame points the way to understanding the political changes that regularly occur. These changes have the potential to create synergies and added political strength between and among the worlds of development and human rights organizations working with social movements and at times along side of them. Actionaid International has the potential to play an important role as part of its effort to end poverty and the world’s growing inequality in economic, political and social matters. In this effort Actionaid International is not a sole actor, or even most of the time the most well known initiator. It is a reliable organization that has special and ongoing contributions to offer. These contributions have the potential to be recognized by the people and movements it serves. Actionaid International’s contributions build and strengthen a community of practitioners who draw their political strength and legitimacy from their development, human rights and social mobilization work. Such work is rooted in communities and crosses international boundaries. In this setting my observations lead me to believe that Actionaid International as of now brings with it clear advantages. These illustrative examples include:

1. An institutional awareness by Actionaid International senior staff members that reflects well on the investment made in advancing the RBA approach since before Fighting Poverty Together (FPT) began.

2. It has led to effective community engagement that in turn has resulted in examples of communities increasing their power.

3. It has led to communities engaging with decision makers and power and policy systems at different levels of governance. The Kenya sugar campaign and the efforts of Dalits to establish dignity in villages in Andra Pradesh illustrates these advances.

4. In some locales RBA has affected difficult institutions and has improved people’s lives in unexpected and unanticipated ways. One example that comes to mind is the change in police practices and behavior in relation to street children in Ethiopia.

5. RBA has provided a political entry point for vulnerable populations.

These winning illustrative outcomes create a sense of possibility that influence changes for the better in people’s lives. That should not be de-emphasized. The work Actionaid International has


done has created a rich experience in which ways have to be found to value that experience. At the same time these encouraging advances increase responsibilities for Actionaid International at all levels including Actionaid International at the international level. II. Rights Based Approach and the International Setting Before those responsibilities are delved into it is critical to look at the international context for a Rights Based Approach. Governments, international donors, multi-national corporations, religious fundamentalists and ethnic chauvinists find different ways to express opposition to make RBA operational. These actors know full well what is at stake. That explains their hostility whether they express it directly, seek to coopt it or blunt it, achieve it by inaction or starve programs that should be funded adequately.. Those who influence traditional power holders sing the song of neo-liberalism. They leave women out as a priority for change and action, place trade liberalization high without meaningful offsets to the immediate harm caused in people’s lives by such liberalization and do not choose education as a priority for policy intervention even where it is most needed in educating girls. This is not about conspiracies by neo-liberals but recognizing that substantial change is resisted by that world even when it positions itself to be constructive and advocate modest non-systemic changes. Currently you will find such matters played out in the Copenhagen Consensus, argued in the pages of The Economist and Financial Times. This group of practitioners has a political and policy agenda. It currently is not matched on an ongoing scale by any sustained set of alternative approaches that penetrate political and policy systems. Even when critical matters may be dealt with—curtailing the spread of HIV-AIDS disease, tackling malnutrition by overcoming anemia with food supplements, stopping the spread of malaria—the framing is one of costs and benefits and it does not touch systemic change. A Rights Based Approach requires a political set of strategies and with it the tools to compete effectively by engaging in the world of ideas not through think tanks but by connecting the work of development, with human rights work and social movement building and strengthening. It challenges the framework of the neo-liberals who influence decision makers. Some of that takes place in a series of UN activities. These have value as they legitimize further and increase the rights based approach in usage that becomes familiar and hopefully in time customary. The groundwork is familiar to Actionaid International leadership people. The United Nation’s Secretary-General has stated as part of UN declarative policy that the UN system is expected to integrate human rights in all its work. Integration is another way of saying that it is expected to “mainstream” such work. Kofi Annan’s efforts have been listened to in part. The major UN development and humanitarian agencies have responded in typical institutional ways. They have studied what others have done, and through experiment and refinement have tried a rights based approach to their programming. UNDP, for example, has published a useful work of why human rights are integral to all of its development work. Other examples abound from the work of WHO, UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNHCR, and other UN agencies. In addition, these agencies have


met, most recently in May, 2003, to exchange experiences, and identify what they consider to be best practices on a rights based approach. Bi-lateral donors have also weighed in with declarative policies that advance a rights based approach. CIDA, DANIDA, DFID, SIDA, NORAD come to mind. Actionaid International is not alone among international NGOs that have adopted a rights based approach. OXFAM, CARE, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, NOVIB, INTERACTION in the United States and other organizations have contributed to an understanding of RBA along lines familiar and supportive of the Actionaid International understanding. Missing from this list are the International Financial Institutions and the driving engines of governments even if within a few governments individual voices and agencies are sympathetic to and supportive of an RBA. It goes without saying that non-state actors, generally associated with markets, corporations and multi-nationals, do not embrace an RBA even to the extent of defending traditional political and civil rights and civil liberties—concepts that are often declaratively embraced by northern and western governments. The economically powerful follow a pattern of either staying silent or undermining RBA that improves peoples lives and their sense of individual dignity and worth. Although dominant forces within the international governance community, and the think tanks and study centers that serve them, do not embrace a rights based approach the idea is far more advanced than it was a decade ago or even five years ago. The force of the various UN conferences in Beijing, Cairo, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Hamburg and other places should not be discounted. In this effort Actionaid International has played an important role in advancing the idea among its key personnel and its programmatic partners. The obstacles to continued advances are strong but the walls are not impregnable. Those advances can be gained and consolidated. They require far more than what has been done so far nor can they be sustained with a list of activities. They do require a set of political strategies that are political and not partisan. I deliberately place the strategies in the plural because there are too many institutional, cultural, regional and country specific variances to focus on one strategy. Here a caution is in order: any successful set of strategies has to welcome “boundary crossing” of institutions and borders by its participants and recognize that organizational competencies have to match the unfolding and maturation of issues on matters that address the eradication of poverty and the advance of human rights.

III. What Is a Rights Based Approach The world does not lack for definitions of the Rights Based Approach. Because of Actionaid Internationals value of fighting poverty with the poor, and not just for the poor, it behooves us to use definitions that reflect the views of the poor. These voices emerge in many of the reports Actionaid International does. They are scattered everywhere and can be found on videos, websites, CD-roms and other modern modes of communication. To make sure that we are all


operating from what a colleague calls “the same song sheet” a brief definition advanced by practitioners in a workshop on human rights and development may prove helpful.

A rights based approach is founded on the conviction that each and every human being, by virtue of being human, is a holder of rights. A right entails an obligation on the part of government to respect, promote, protect and fulfill it. The legal and normative character of rights and the associated government obligations are based on international human rights treaties and other standards, as well as on national constitutional human rights provisions. Thus a rights based approach involves not

charity or simple economic development, but a process of enabling and empowering those not enjoying their economic, social and cultural rights to claim their rights.

In operational terms, as we all know, it means understanding the difference between a right and a need. A right is something a person is entitled to solely because that person is a person. It enables the person naming and claiming the right to live a life of dignity. A right, as Mary Robinson has asserted in her address to the World Summit in Durban, “provides a normative framework of obligations that has legal power to render governments accountable.” To carry out the operational aspects further if a right can be enforced before the government the government then in turn has an obligation to protect and/or fulfill that right. Needs are also legitimate but they are aspirations. Without diminishing their importance, aspirations and obligations by the government do not go together in a mutually enforceable manner. As a savvy practitioner put it “satisfaction of a need cannot be enforced.” So rights are associated with dignity and being and needs are associated with possessing and having. The astute insights of Mr. Minh, a development worker directly associated with Actionaid International Vietnam (AAV) in Dien Bien Phu connects a rights based approach in that socialist country with the right of association and the right to have and use information by those affected by development policies and government actions. In Kenya similar insights have been gained from direct work in the field about the centrality of the right to information and making that information accessible and usable to people on the front lines. Participants in Vietnam and Kenya have put into operational terms what Amartya Sen sees as the development of the expansion of freedoms. The public freedoms, as practiced by Mr. Minh and the anonymous practitioner who distinguished between rights and needs, come full circle with Sen’s articulated freedoms. They are each embodied in political and civil rights through participation and association in public life and the economic, social and cultural rights such as access to the equalizing institutions: health, education, shelter and livelihood. There is a context and foundation for a Rights Based Approach that on the whole does not seem to emerge in Actionaid International work. That is said descriptively and not critically. Taking advantage of the context and foundation for RBA is meant to position Actionaid International as an initiating actor in the advancing of RBA. Central to the effort is having a full understanding and appreciation of the international human rights law framework. That framework is established in various treaties. Many countries where


Actionaid International is present have signed of one or more of these treaties. These treaties provide the framework for what can be considered an International Bill of Human Rights. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Over 160 countries have ratified one or more of these treaties and covenants. Furthermore, these are not the only treaties critical to development practitioners, human rights advocates and social movement people who mobilize others. Other treaties include the Convention on the rights of the Child, the Convention Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention against Racial Discrimination. Most states have ratified these treaties. Strategically these treaties provide a real advantage to activists trying to advance an RBA. It is easy for eyes to glaze over at the provisions that are routinely hailed and routinely ignored. What we do know is that no treaty self-executes itself. Implementation of established norms and declarative policy is a long winding road and treaty, covenant or convention approval is but an early step in making the norm and the policy real. Ratifying these treaties is an affirming act in advancing an RBA. In no way is it an empty or symbolic act. Understanding the treaties brings people directly into contact with principles of equality, non-discrimination, transparency and accountability into national and local law. Treaties require states to ensure that their laws are fully consistent with the treaties. We are all experienced enough to know that states will invariably do the minimum. Treaties are about establishing floors for states. For those working on RBA they are about lifting the floor and raising the ceiling. Lifting the floor and raising the ceiling is about advocacy and therefore it is about politics. That is not a burden but a challenge. What these treaties, covenants and conventions do is create political space to raise human rights issues on social, economic, political and cultural matters. They move the discussion from law to a political and policy arena. It affects people’s lives on what matters to them. It moves them to action. One of the refrains we heard constantly was “rice and rights.” Rights are an abstraction without rice or the necessities of life. The growing vortex of development, human rights and social mobilization work has linked in the Mr Minh of Vietnam’s framework of economic, social and cultural rights with political and civil rights. The Mary Robinson mantra of “all rights for all” connects these rights in a way that neither rice nor political rights take a back seat. This is critical in the scheme of holding country officials responsible for implementing international agreements that have been agreed to. Rights holders have a basis on which to base their claims. Such rights holders make claims on State and non-state actors (often economic powers) who have obligations as well. The state and the non-state actors are duty bearers. What we have is a relationship between the rights-holders and the duty-bearers. A central aspect in this relationship is for the rights holder to have the capacity to name and claim the rights held by the individual, group and community. The duty bearer also must have the capacity to fulfill the right. Not being able to fulfill the right by the duty bearer is not


acceptable and ways must be found to make sure that the right is fulfilled whether it is a question of administrative capacity or resource allocation. What has happened is that the international legal system sets a context for a right’s based approach that expresses “all the rights for all.” Rights holders have the right to demand from duty-bearers—the states or private entities such as corporations, public-private partnerships, even a family or legal arrangements created by states to fulfill the treaties—to respect, protect and fulfill people’s rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) expects its signatories to fulfill the rights by taking on its state responsibilities, and to call on and use economic and technical international assistance to make the rights real. That is no small order. The legal framework provides the pivot energy for an Actionaid International to be an initiating actor as part of an international effort to advance social and economic development in a human rights framework that stands with social movements. AAN considers poverty as the social, economic and political conditions in which people are denied their rights to a life of dignity. Thus, AAN’s poverty reduction work will be mainly driven by RBA. RBA sees basic human needs as basic rights of people and believes that attainment of basic rights can overcome injustice and thus poverty. RBA sees abject poverty as gross violation of people's basic rights and provides international human rights standards for poverty eradication work making it an obligation of state rather than only an intention. AAN considers that RBA is all about analysis of different factors and processes of power relations that lead people into the trap of poverty. RBA strives to identify and challenge political, social, economic and cultural barriers that create and perpetuate poverty. In its understanding of RBA, AAN considers the State as primarily responsible to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of people. It believes that any other actor working for the rights of the right-holders group should complement but must not replace the role of the State. As human rights hail from human needs, the RBA always includes need-based approach. However, RBA adds the values of equity and non-discrimination on need-based approach and also sees the political and social dimensions of poverty. The RBA Manual prepared by AAN will further elaborate about the detailed modalities of RBA as envisaged by AAN. AAN considers active participation of poor and excluded people and spirit of equal partnership as the major tenets of RBA.

ActionAid ActionAid (AA) is an international development institution registered as a global organisation in The Hague, the Netherlands in September 2003. The AA International Secretariat is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Founded in the United Kingdom in 1972, AA is a secular and non-political organisation working with over nine million of the poorest people majority of them living in the developing world in 43 countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. It is committed to improving the quality of life of the poorest and the most excluded people so that they can live a life of dignity.

AA has been working in Nepal since 1982. Its mission here is to eradicate poverty and injustice by empowering the poor and excluded people. The work of ActionAid International Nepal (AAIN), hereafter referred to as ActionAid Nepal (AAN), over the years has undergone various changes informed by its engagement at the community and other levels. Its scope of work has thus grown in content, coverage, commitment and capacity to work in a complex situation over the period.

AAN changed its approach from direct service delivery to partnership mode with local NGOs in 1996. Similarly, it adopted rights-based approach in 1998 with an aim to creating an environment in which poor and excluded women, men, girls and boys can exercise their rights, and address and overcome the causes and effects of poverty caused due to injustice and inequity by actively engaging themselves in all aspects of development activities.

Currently, AAN's long-term partnership programmes at field level are being implemented mainly in Achham, Baglung, Baitadi, Bajhang, Bajura, Banke, Bardiya, Chitwan, Dadeldhura, Dang, Darchula, Dhanusha, Dolakha, Doti, Jajarkot, Jhapa, Jumla, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Kapilbastu, Kathmandu, Khotang, Lalitpur, Mahottari, Morang, Mugu, Parbat, Parsa, Rasuwa, Saptari, Sarlahi, Sindhupalchowk, Siraha and Sunsari districts. Besides these, AAN has several short-term engagements at any time with about 175 NGOs, CBOs, Alliances, Networks and Forums across the country.

AAN's rights holders are the poorest and the most excluded people particularly women, children, Dalits, former Kamaiya, victims of conflict and disasters, poor landless and tenants, people with disabilities, urban poor, people living with HIV and AIDS, and indigenous people. In 2003, AAN prioritised five themes based on the local context and needs – Education, Food Security, HIV and AIDS, Peace Building, and Women's Rights. These apart, AAN is also engaged in issues such as Emergency and Disaster, Globalisation and Corporate Sector, Governance, Patriarchy/Gender, and Social Inclusion that cut across our priority themes.

AAN works at the grassroots level to address the immediate conditions of the poorest and the most excluded people, and at the national level with various advocacy programmes in order to influence public policies and practices in favour of its rights holders.

As a chapter of AA International, AAN is also actively engaged in advocating at the regional and international levels on issues such as Education, HIV and AIDS, Food Security, Gender Equity and Governance that cut across globally, to campaign for pro-poor policies and to enable the poor and excluded women, men, girls and boys to secure their rights.

AAN actively shares its working experiences by participating in district and national development debates, establishing links with similar development organisations and His Majesty's Government of Nepal, and by forming partnerships with Nepali NGOs, CBOs and other stakeholders as appropriate. AAN has three Regional Resource Centres one each in Biratnagar, Bharatpur and Nepalgunj to help and monitor its programmes being carried out in the respective regions.

Nepal pva workshop report chitwan november 2k5 final

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