ai/ravi · web viewwhen we took them at their word, as we did one afternoon in a grungy market town...

Issues in Participatory Development:From Participatory Rural Appraisal to Appreciative Planning and Action --

A Former Volunteer’s Personal Journey of Discovery

Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., Ph.D.Technical Advisor, Participatory Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation

Habitat for Humanity International

Box 5367, Tangal March 2002 4 Whitehall RoadKathmandu, Nepal Email: [email protected] South Hampton, NH 03827Tel: +9771-4l7980 Tel: 603-394-7890

Some Fruits of Appreciative Planning and Action (APA): Women planting degraded hillside adjoining site of Kali Gandaki Hydropower Project in Central Nepal. APA helped turn conflict into cooperation. Villagers voluntarily planted over 50,000 seedlings during the monsoon of 1998 to help control the 60 landslides that blocked the Project Access Road.

Summary For the past 6 years I have been actively involved in the development, testing, and

adaptation of participatory research techniques in Nepal, and in particular, in seeking means of enhancing the capacity of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)-based approaches to promote mobilization and empowerment among rural people, and of promoting positive action through positive inquiry. These draw on work that I began in the Peace Corps in Nepal from 1962-1967 and in collaboration with Robert Chambers in Botswana in the late 1970s. Since then I have tested, with promising results, the blending of concepts from several schools of organizational development theory to help rural people and development practitioners reverse negative self-images commonly held by villagers and to generate, instead, the pride and self-reliance upon which successful rural development must be built. These PRA-based techniques, drawing in particular on Appreciative Inquiry, with input

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from Asset Based Assessment, Open Space Technology, and Future Search models, have shown positive results in replacing the fatalism and resignation of villagers with pride in their achievements, self-confidence in their ability to set attainable goals, and success in achieving them.1

This quest began when I served over 30 years ago as a volunteer in the first Peace Corps group in Nepal, working in Dhankuta and Solu-Khumbu districts, sometimes 2 weeks hike from the nearest road or telephone. Despite the fact that Nepal's mountain people have mastered the art and science of survival in one of the world's most difficult environments, with many attaining world acclaim as Gurkha soldiers and Sherpa mountaineers of extraordinary courage, endurance, and good humor, I found on returning some 35 years later that many Nepali villagers today look down on themselves as poor, backward, illiterate, and ignorant. This paper summarizes a journey of exploration that began and ended in Nepal -- a journey which led to the process of discovery, dream, design, and delivery that both characterizes and has played such an important role in the development, testing, adaptation and application of the Appreciative Planning and Action approach.

From Academic to Participatory Research:Lessons from Native American and African Cultures

Recognizing that I needed additional skills to pursue a career addressing the problems of rural people in developing countries, I followed my 5 years in Nepal with graduate work in Rural and Development Sociology at the Cornell Agriculture School. I chose this discipline of practical, applied research because I believed it could provide the necessary tools for analyzing and understanding rural societies in order to meet my ultimate objective: the design and implementation of successful development programs in the Third World. Cornell also introduced me to my wife and life partner in this adventure of discovery, Marcia Odell, who took me first to learn from America's Native Americans about the richness and wisdom to be found in the United States' own traditional societies, about the folly of ignoring, undermining, or seeking to change cultures we do not fully understand. As a participant in her study of federal land policies, of the break-up of communal land tenure systems, and of the damage this wrought upon the Cherokee Nation, I witnessed how a proud, highly organized and educated people suffered greater destruction from the privatization of their land than from the violent and inhuman "Trail of Tears" that forced them to migrate from the green hills of Appalachia to the dry plains of Oklahoma.2

My own thesis research, focusing on the public participation of rural people in modern communications, included time among the Seneca, another Native American society similarly undermined by misguided national policies, often cited by reformers as undertaken 'in the best interests of the Indians.'3 From Cornell, seeking to return to active work in the developing world and to learn from programs in other parts of the globe, Marcia and I set off together for Africa where we were soon immersed in the implementation and assessment of policies which bore disturbing similarities to those that had been imposed upon Native Americans.1 Perhaps Nepal's most articulate and well-known analyst of this destructive pattern of self-concept

and its impact on national development is Dor Bahadur Bista, author of Fatalism and Development: Nepal's Struggle for Modernization, Calcutta and London: Orient Longman, 1991

2 Divide and Conquer: Allotment among the Cherokee. Public Land Series, Arno Press (New York Times), Marcia Larson Odell, 1977

3 What Happened to the Public in Public Television? Ph. D. dissertation, Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, l974

Taking a position heading up the Government of Botswana's new Rural Sociology Unit, in 1975 I found myself in charge of an applied research program that was to guide a new national tribal grazing land policy. The goal was to protect the fragile Kalahari eco-system while promoting improved rural incomes, a policy in which Chambers and his colleague, Feldman, had played an important design role. This program was one of the first major national programs to respond to "The Tragedy of the Commons" school of thought regarding common property that argued for privatization of common land on the grounds that common property lacked the incentives necessary to assure sustainable management.

Given that implementation of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy was already moving ahead at a rapid pace in Botswana, it was clear that traditional academic research would be too slow and expensive for monitoring the implementation of this policy to produce appropriate adaptations that might be made before it was too late. Furthermore, the research that Marcia and I had done among the Cherokee and Seneca Nations had taught us the risks inherent in the privatization of common land, the destabilization of social and economic systems and the roles they had played in the destruction of Native American cultures and social organizations.

Thus the need for rapid, but reliable field research tools led my local team to begin developing short-cuts to classical research design; we needed to get answers to important questions in time for key decisions regarding certain policy initiatives. These included fenced ranching and the drilling of boreholes in a semi-desert environment inhabited by tribal cattle herders and Bushmen.4 The train was leaving the station and we either had to be on board or settle for post-facto analysis of what had happened, rather than be part of protecting both the land and the people who had managed it for generations.

In the context of rapidly changing circumstances, I welcomed the return to Botswana of Robert Chambers to follow up on his policy recommendations. It was then that I learned that we shared concerns and interests in developing what Chambers soon popularized as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA). We learned much from his experience and guidance, and tested the emerging package of RRA tools immediately in our field work. As our Rural Sociology Unit proceeded to use and test these early forms of RRA, however, we identified the need to consult and involve the local people in the research process, in recognition of their extensive local knowledge and insight. My colleague Yvonne Merafe, bringing social sensitivity and group process skills, was instrumental in this process and later assumed leadership of the unit and its applied research program. We thus began combining our rapid appraisal tools with small group meetings with villagers, drawing on the lessons of 'focus group' research in marketing applications in the US and Europe.

These techniques, which benefited from further interaction and exchange of ideas with Chambers, were among a number of precursors to what is known worldwide as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). They proved effective in generating reliable, insightful, and timely information that played an important role in shifting Botswana's national policy away from fenced ranches on leasehold land toward more organic community-based livestock management, which combined traditional management practices with modern technology.5 As a result of these and other similar initiatives world-

4 Tribal Grazing Land Policy Consultation Campaign: The Results of the Baseline Survey of May/June 1976. Joint monograph, Rural Sociology, Series # 4, & Botswana Extension College, Tech. Note # 5 on Radio Learning Group Consultation Campaign. Gaborone: Ministry of Agriculture & Botswana Extension College, Malcolm Odell, June 1977

5 "The Evolution of a Strategy for Communal Area Livestock Development in Botswana: Pastoralism and Planning in a Semi-Arid Environment." Paper presented at Workshop on Pastoralism and African Livestock Projects, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, Malcolm Odell and

wide, major donors such as the World Bank and USAID began developing new programs utilizing participatory, village-based approaches for managing communal lands, and to allow flexibility to draw on a wider range of inputs and options than in earlier designs. Both the Chambers and Feldman report and Chambers’ PRA approach, in its earliest incarnations, had made an impact on national policy, the natural environment, and the lives of villagers, whose own ideas and knowledge had led to programs that had positive results for both themselves and the natural environment on which they depended for their livelihoods.6

Transferring Technology: The Journey Back to Asia

After leaving Botswana, I undertook nearly l5 years of consulting work during the 1980s and early '90s. I used my African and Asian experiences to shape a series of project evaluations, program designs, and training programs for over 1,000 participants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. RRA and PRA were critical tools for these training and evaluation endeavors and contributed to a gradually widening acceptance of participatory approaches in programs as varied as village services and farming systems, in settings that ranged from Egypt and Pakistan to Bangladesh and India.7

Returning to Asia in 1994, I took up field assignments in the mountains of Nepal that brought me back to the village settings in which I had been immersed for 5 years during the 1960s. My first position upon returning to Nepal was as Country Representative and Co-Manager (1994/96) of the Makalu-Barun Conservation Project with The Mountain Institute (TMI), and subsequently as Senior Advisor for Environment and Community Development (1996/97). From mid-1997 I became Environmental Advisor/Trainer for the Kali Gandaki Hydroelectric Project, heading up its Environmental Management Unit (KGEMU). More recently I have been working with the development of community mobilization tools for a major national women’s empowerment program and as technical advisor for participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation for Habitat for Humanity International. As a core activity in each of these assignments, which were heavily dependent on the participation of local communities, I turned to sharpening and reformulating the participatory research tools I had used in both Botswana and my consulting work.

My commitment to reassessing the PRA tools I knew so well came from a disturbing discovery: After some 30 years away from the villages of Nepal, a country which had

Marcia Odell, September 19796 Sociological Research and Rural Development Policy: A Review with Policy Implications of

Socio-economic Research Conducted by or in Association with the Rural Sociology Unit . Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana. Gaborone: Government Printer, Malcolm Odell, May 1980

"Local Government: Traditional and Modern Roles of the Village Kgotla." In Politics, Rural Development Policy and Proximity to South Africa: The Evolution of Modern Botswana, Louis Picard, ed., London and Lincoln, Nebraska: Rex Collings and Univ. of Nebraska Press, Malcolm Odell, 1985

7 "The Social Side of Social Forestry: Village Forests in Central India." Social Soundness Analysis for USAID Social Forestry Project, Madhya Pradesh. New Delhi, India: USAID, Malcolm Odell, December 1980

“Participation, Decentralization and Village-Based Information Systems for the Basic Village Services Project.” Report to USAID/Cairo and the Organization for the Reconstruction and Development of the Egyptian Village (ORDEV). Washington, D.C.: Chemonics International Consulting Division, Malcolm Odell, 1982

"People, Power, and a New Role for Agricultural Extension: Issues and Options Involving Local Participation and Groups." Malcolm Odell, in Investing in Rural Extension: Strategies and Goals, Gwyn E. Jones, ed., London and New York: Elsevier Applied Science Publishers, 1986

attained world renown for its active commitment to PRA and participatory approaches to small farmer irrigation, community forestry, and community-based buffer-zone management of national parks, I found little had changed in many mountain villages, despite these encouraging programs. Most disillusioning, however, was finding widespread negative self-images and discouragement among the proud villagers that I had known so well decades before. With some of the world's most advanced and successful participatory programs, and widespread acceptance of PRA approaches evident in Nepal, villagers not only were still among the poorest in the world, but seemed to have little pride in their remarkable achievements (including arguably the most successful community forestry program in the world). Even worse, they appeared to have even less confidence than previously that they had any power to change their circumstances without major and continuing help from outside. The traditional self-reliance of Nepal's remote communities appeared to have been replaced with a dependency syndrome that, in the face of political, financial, and administrative obstacles in Nepal and declining donor investments, did not bode well for the future.

Back to the Drawing Boards:The Search for Tools for Empowerment

Beginning in 1994, as I hiked from village to village in the hills I had known so well as a volunteer years before, I began to search for the roots of the negative and self-defacing attitudes of these rugged and independent Nepalis. Our TMI project was built on participation, and PRA was widely known and practiced. People were being consulted and involved in all phases of the project, and numerous assessments of local problems and resources had been conducted in the project area between the Arun Valley and Mt. Everest. These had used the best-known PRA techniques and had been introduced by skilled practitioners ever since the first TMI task force had made its initial design studies in the early 1990s. Yet something was missing. With a decade of the publication of popular and professional literature, and innumerable conferences, "empowerment" had become the 'buzz word.' Yet these villagers, however resourceful and active in development programs, appeared far from empowered. When entering a village, one of the most common greetings, after a polite welcome, was for a villager to relate a litany of problems, prefaced with remarks about the remoteness, poverty, ignorance, and backwardness of the village--whether it was a 10-day hike into the mountains or a 5-minute walk from the major highway running from the capital to Pokhara.

The women of Dhan Bahadur’s Allo Production Club discussing plans for an ‘Each One, Teach One’ program to achieve 100% literacy among their members, using proceeds from the Rs.100,000 they had earned during 1997/98 from their weaving.

Encountering Appreciative Inquiry:From the Organization to the Project Context

While I pondered the anomaly of negativity and dependency in the villages, as Project Manager I became involved with a series of team-building and organizational development workshops within The Mountain Institute introduced by our new President, Dr. Jane Pratt, who had come to TMI after a successful career with the World Bank. Based on the work of Cooperrider and Srivastava,8 these workshops used a relatively new organizational development (OD) approach, Appreciative Inquiry (AI ), to discover individual and organizational strengths, dream of what would be even better, design a process to get there, and deliver a program of action built on personal commitments. I found the results were energizing and contributed to a new atmosphere of optimism, team-work, innovation, and renewed commitment among our team members. Looking into the roots of the approach, as well as other OD tools such as Future Search,9 I joined my colleague, Bob Davis, in an effort to introduce Appreciative

Inquiry into TMI's work in Nepal, including management, planning, and team-building among our diverse staff and partners. The results were encouraging and contributed to improved morale and self-esteem among staff members, and to more productive -- and enjoyable -- planning sessions.

In a difficult but ultimately wise move, at the age of 57 and encouraged by our TMI president, I shed my TMI management duties and turned directly to addressing both the dependency syndrome evident in Makalu-Barun villages and the potential for linking PRA and AI principles to address this dependency pattern. Bob Davis, following on the successful role that AI had played within TMI, had tested the introduction of AI principles into a village planning training program in Sikkim with promising results. With this evidence in hand, I made a personal commitment to return to the villages on a full-time basis and explore the potential of the appreciative approach for building self-esteem and teamwork at the grass-roots level. With the support and advice of other Appreciative

8 See Srivastva and Cooperrider and Associates, Appreciative Management and Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1990; "Appreciative Inquiry Into Organizational Life," in Research in Organizational Change and Development, Passmore and Woodman (eds.), Vol. 1, JAI Press; D. Cooperrider, Appreciative Inquiry Workshop Manual

9 Marvin Weisbord, Productive Workplaces, 1987; Weisbord and Janoff, Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities, San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1995

Inquiry pioneers in Nepal, including Ravi Pradhan of Karuna Management and Buddhi Tamang of SAGUN, I headed for the hills and the villages of Makalu-Barun to develop and test these encouraging ideas.

On the Trail: The Evolution of Appreciative Planning and Action

In November 1996 I undertook an intensive one-on-one personal and professional assessment and training program with Barbara Sloan, one of the founders of the Appreciative Inquiry approach. With the support and encouragement of TMI, I then started on a program of extensive research, design, field testing and adaptation of different PRA-based approaches onto which my TMI colleagues and I grafted concepts from these appreciative mobilization and team-building approaches. From this came a rather simple concept that summed up where we were headed:

"If you look for problems, you find more problems; if you look for successes, you find more success. If you believe in your dreams you can accomplish miracles." Our motto thus became to "seek the root cause of success," rather than the “root cause of problems.”

Over the following year, freed of management duties and able to spend full time in the field, I hiked from village to village with a revolving cast of Nepali colleagues including, in particular, Chandi Chapagain, Ang Rita Sherpa, and Lamu Sherpa. On a daily basis we tried one approach after another, assessing and redesigning every evening around the fire. By mid-1997 we had developed together what is now an internationally recognized community mobilization strategy based on both long involvement with training and implementation of PRA systems and new experiences with modern organizational development strategies.

This PRA and AI adaptation, "Appreciative Planning and Action” (APA), is simple in concept, yet profound in its impact in the villages. Using a basic "1, 2, 3, and 4D" model that is both easily learned and readily adapted to different situations, we found ourselves entering a village to the old refrains of fatalism, and departing a few hours later surrounded by people literally dancing and singing...or busy building latrines, cleaning the village common, repairing the trail to the spring.10 Village leaders and the most junior among our staff of 100 took up the technique, telling us, "This we understand, and we can do it!" When we took them at their word, as we did one afternoon in a grungy market town along a rolling stream 4 days’ walk from the nearest road, within 10 minutes they had a meeting of local people in full swing in which people shared success stories and were creating a new vision for their community. Within an hour the group had dispersed and, with great gusto, was busy making brooms and cleaning up the entire bazaar.

Application of these APA approaches to our meetings with women weavers was similarly encouraging. The APA meetings led directly to the opening of one new weaving club and indirectly to a further increase in production and sales that over 4 years experienced 500% growth. The 400 women members, who 10 years ago were so poor that they not only never dreamed of jewelry, but were too poor to buy the thread to weave their own clothing, have built up a business that annually grosses over Rs. 1 million ($15,000), in a country where rural per capita incomes are less than $100. In our APA meetings Rai women proudly reported being the first in their families to ever have gold earrings and to have paid off husbands' debts. Some reported that they were now earning Rs. 15,000, or more, four times the local per capita income, from their weaving. One by-product of both

10 See Annex for details on the "1, 2. 3, '4D'" model and guidelines for its application

their pride and their contribution to family income is that their husbands have now built them a weaving center and have asked to be trained themselves as weavers, an activity once solely undertaken by women.

On our part, we found ourselves empowered by what was happening around us; our work was beginning to make a positive difference in our personal and professional lives...and we were having more fun that we had had in years! Furthermore, the APA approach, which helped contribute to the empowerment of these women, has been credited by UNDP, CARE/Nepal, SAGUN and The Mountain Institute with making a significant contribution toward empowering other rural communities to mobilize their own resources and take charge of their own development.11

An Appreciative Challenge: From Conservation to Conflict Resolution

Shifting from the Makalu-Barun Conservation Project in mid 1997 to head up the environmental and community management program for the largest hydropower project in Nepal’s development history, I began the process of further adapting and testing the APA approach. In this case, quite unlike that of Makalu-Barun, we were dealing with specific conditions of dislocation and conflict, which characterized relations between a major hydropower project and local communities. The outcome of this process of adapting APA was what we labeled "Discovery, Planning and Action" (DPA ).12 This approach, which starts with questions geared to identifying successful partnerships and 'win-win' solutions, has been remarkably successful particularly for both conflict-resolution and building positive linkages among unlikely bedfellows.

Those that the DPA process helped bring together included both foreign and Nepali engineers, construction firms, administrators and social scientists. Those involved also included government bureaucrats, local, national and international non-profit, non-government organizations, and rural villagers living much as they had centuries ago. They carried enormous loads of grass for their animals on their backs along the edges of a modern roadway over which a steady stream of some 100 new Land Cruisers and sophisticated construction vehicles traveled daily throughout the project area in Syangje District.

On these teams were high-tech computer specialists and scientists working for 'command and control,' profit-oriented, international engineering and construction firms, which operated on tight deadlines and at breakneck speed, under circumstances in which a day lost could cost Rs.1 million or more. These people, many of whom earned 6 figure dollar salaries, were living and working in an area where the per capita incomes of many local people were less than $100 a year. Cash for weekly payrolls, as well as international

11 Malcolm Odell, "From Conflict to Cooperation: Appreciative Approaches to Building Rural Partnerships for Hydropower Development in the Himalayas." Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management, October 1998

Malcolm Odell, Rajendra Thanju, and Pranav Acharya, "From Protest to Partnership: Village Organizations and Environmental Protection, A Review of Community Participation Activities in Support of Hydropower Development." Kali Gandaki Environmental Management Unit, UNDP South Asia Poverty Alleviation Program, and Impregilo, SpA, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 1998

" Malcolm Odell, "Appreciative Planning and Action: Experience from the Field in Evolving a New Strategy for Empowering Communities in Nepal.” In Sue Annis Hammond and Cathy Royal, Lessons from the Field: Applying Appreciative Inquiry, Plano, TX: Practical Press, 1998

12 With thanks to Dr. Michael Cernea, World Bank (ret.), for suggesting the name for this adaptation of APA used among Kali-Gandaki communities to replace conflict with cooperation; the focus on 'discovery' reflected the emphasis on seeking common ground among adversaries and discovering that self-help activities were more empowering than gaining concessions from outsiders.

consultants and donors, was flown into the area regularly by helicopter, landing on the outskirts of communities steeped in religious tradition and with a social structure marked by family and process-oriented values. In these villages life moved at a relaxed and relatively slow pace. Thus while a local woman could spend hours bringing her family a jug of water for its daily needs, a contractor's wife, living 200 meters away, could get water by turning on the tap in her modern electric kitchen. As a result of this diversity, the rapid pace of change, dislocations and communication gaps, as well as a host of other complex social, economic, and institutional factors, the project's first year was marked by conflict, strikes, and major misunderstandings among the parties involved.

From the time that I joined the project in August 1997 through the rest of that year and into early 1998, villagers were regularly protesting, blocking project roads and calling strikes that even turned violent. Accidents and illnesses related to the project and an influx of over 1,000 laborers claimed the lives of an average of one person a month, one of whom died from bullet wounds when police opened fire on an unruly mob protesting the firing of several drivers responsible for accidents related to their drinking on the job. National newspapers carried a steady stream of reports on the problems plaguing the project, many of which were rooted in the basic tensions and conflicts between the project and local communities.13

13 See Figure I for sample headlines from national press.

From Protest to Partnership:Sample Headlines from National Press

A continuing pattern of conflict between the Kali Gandaki Project andadjoining communities typified relationships during 1997.

From Protest to Partnership

Prior to both project initiation and the establishment of its Environmental Management Unit, a major deforestation process took place within the project area when local people, compensated for land to be taken by the project, cut and sold large numbers of trees from those lands in anticipation of forthcoming tree-clearance to make way for civil works. While our unit was equipped with neither trained community development staff nor social scientists familiar with working with communities, as opposed to studying them, we initiated a training program to introduce the basic principles of community organization and the appreciative Discovery, Planning, and Action approach. Drawing on AI principles, we built our first partnerships around the environment, seeking common ground among our environmental management unit (within the office of the Project Engineer), the international contractor's environmental and safety staff, and local village organizations, which had been formed by a UNDP poverty alleviation program working in the area. (Figure II)

The result of this first partnership was the development, by the end of 1997, of half a dozen community-based micro-nurseries, instead of the originally planned high-tech central nursery to be run by the contractor, to produce seedlings that would be needed to revegetate disturbed areas. By January and February 1998 we had started regular meetings with communities using the DPA approach. Despite eagerness to harvest as many material benefits from the project as possible, local people recognized that only through protection of their natural environment would the terraced hillsides and forests upon which their livelihoods depended be there for their children and grandchildren. For the next two years not one community with which we had held such DPA and Earth Day meetings, if only for a few hours, engaged in any further confrontational or disruptive activities.

Keeping the Faith:Reversing a Near Disaster

One of the basic tenets of Appreciative Inquiry is the power of belief, something well understood in Nepal, a deeply religious country of Hindus and Buddhists, religions within which I have found surprising parallels between this modern Organizational Development model and ancient principles of theological harmony. In the village of Jagatra Devi, my commitment and belief regarding our appreciative approach was severely tested, however. Our DPA meeting had started well, progressing from Discovery of their successes, to Dream of an 'even better' future, and Design for achieving their goals. When their personal commitments were called for during the transition to Delivery, however, the positive climate vanished, to be replaced by angry demands that the project should be making commitments, not the villagers. At this point they produced a long list of demands. All efforts by my colleagues and me failed to defuse this climate of conflict. My partners headed for our vehicle, motioning for me to come before people started throwing stones. I hesitated, fearful of the crowd turning even uglier as they began to discuss calling a strike for the next day and blocking the access road as they had once before. Another million rupees a day was at stake!

From Environmental Destruction toCommunity-Based Plantation

The communities that cut down large numbers of trees during the process of land acquisition for the Kali Gandaki Project subsequently became partners in a participatory plantation program. This transformation grew out of a KGEMU program of APA meetings and community-based micro-nurseries that contributed to 19 village organizations coming forward voluntarily to plant and protect the Project’s 17 km. access road after World Environment Day in June 1998.

At that point I decided that if I hold to AI principle regarding belief, I had to give it one more try. In fact, I had better start over. I put my arm over the shoulder of the village leader and going back to the first step in the process, "Discovery,” I asked him to take me around the village and show me all those development projects his people had undertaken on their own. "You described these at the beginning of the meeting," I said, "but I'd like to see them for myself." His scowl turned to puzzlement, then begrudgingly he agreed.

Followed by a restless but curious crowd, he led me to the sparkling little temple the villagers had refurbished the year before. They were clearly proud of this temple and began to explain its history to me. A few smiles appeared as I listened carefully and asked about how they had organized its restoration. From there we moved on to visit a series of water taps which they had built so that the women would not have to walk to the old water source down the hill. By the time we had reached the bottom of the gully where they proudly showed off their latest project, a collection tank for irrigation water, a dozen enthusiastic voices were making sure that I understood that they had built this entirely on their own, with each family contributing labor and stones, while the village council provided the cement. The hostility had vanished.

"Isn't this what we were discussing when the meeting broke up?" I queried the VDC Chairman. "It’s these kinds of personal commitments and contributions that you all have made for the success of these projects that we were asking about." "Well, of course we do that for all our projects," he replied, "and even I take my turn every month as watchman guarding our community forest." The ice was broken, the 'discovery' made, and the circle of villagers nodded to each other and smiled.

Within a few minutes the Chairman had brought the people together again and they laid out their plan for the expansion and protection of their community forest and the roles each of them would play. From our side, we offered seedlings from one of the nearby community micro-nurseries if they would take responsibility for planting and protection. Deal made. Their long list of demands disappeared and we were invited for tea. Within a few minutes people broke out in song, the drum and flutes were pulled out of the back of our vehicle, and soon dozens of us were dancing, laughing, and singing in the rain.

Six month later, on the occasion of World Environment Day, the people of Jagatra Devi invited us to a day-long celebration, tree planting, and clean-up campaign for what had been one of the area’s dirtiest roadside communities. Their women's group, after a presentation of songs and dances, asked to be given responsibility for roadside plantation and maintenance of the 12 km. access road connecting the project area with the main north-south mountain highway. Setting aside differences with, and hunger for, project largess, the villages rallied around the task of protecting their environment. Early monsoon rains had already begun to reveal how their tree cutting, combined with road construction, was destabilizing hillsides, a situation that would only get worse with each storm.

Appreciation and Conservation:From World Environment Day to World Environment Month

Following a remarkable series of joint celebrations of World Environment Day in June, typified by that in Jagatra Devi, an extraordinary new series of partnerships developed in which our appreciative approach played an important role. Festivities were undertaken by each neighboring community that involved our environmental staff, engineers, and local villagers. At these events project staff were garlanded with flowers and treated to songs,

dances, poetry, and elegant meals--all organized by the same villagers who had stoned project vehicles and blocked the access road 6 months before.

By the beginning of the 1998 monsoon in July, over 20 indigenous village organizations had come forward to take responsibility for plantation and protection of the project's 27 km. access road and other facilities, which had suffered serious erosion and slope failure during the project's first year. These activities included an innovative "Road Neighbors Program" which our team developed jointly with the civil contractor and the UNDP-sponsored village organizations. This started the process for controlling the 60-65 roadside slope failures through plantation of over 70,000 seedlings from the 7 sustainable community-based micro-nurseries established the year before; here was another key ingredient in the participation process.

Funding for the first phase of this program of village-initiated plantation was proposed to be drawn from the Rs. 1 million in savings realized from our initiative to shift from the capital-intensive central nursery model to the more sustainable community micro-nurseries. Resolution of environmental and community conflicts, which had cost the project as much as $1 million in direct costs, plus lost time, provided additional savings, generated local support, and enhanced Nepal's capacity to develop environmentally and economically sound hydropower.14 As a recent visitor heading up another donor’s hydropower development initiatives observed after a field visit to the site: “That access road is amazing...one of the best roads I’ve seen in the country...planted on both sides with trees, environmentally stable. A model road.”

14 See Figure II for photos of representative village celebrations for World Environment Day and roadside plantation.

From Protest to PartnershipWorld Environment Day Celebrations

Start a "Landslide" of Local Plantation Activitiesl998

Cleaning up the streets of Galyang, near the Kali Gandaki Project Site: Appreciative Planning and Action coupled with a community-based nursery program helped transform a pattern of continuing conflict between communities and the Hydropower project into a cooperative program of environmental conservation that dramatically improved the face of this once dirty and unattractive roadside community.

Turning the Spotlight on Rural Women:Pact's Women's Empowerment Project

In October 1998 Nepal's Women's Empowerment Project (WEP) became interested in the role that Appreciative Planning and Action might play in helping implement a large program to bring literacy, village banking, and micro-enterprise development to the women of the Terai in southern Nepal. Much of the program was to be delivered through a set of self-instructional manuals called Women in Business, and these would require women to take charge of their own learning. Pact, an international NGO, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), together with Education, Curriculum, and Training Associates (ECTA), a national NGO, was planning to reach the ambitious target of 100,000 women during a three-year initiative. Pact had prior experience implementing the Women Reading for Development (WORD) project, which had brought literacy to over 500,000 women nationwide; thus the target of reaching 100,000 women was not unreasonable.

The team's vision for the future was that, if successful, WEP could be further scaled up to become the foundation for a national "women-to-women" program that would be sustainable. Included in the WEP initiative were the key components of a strategy by which poor rural women of Nepal could actually pay for such a program themselves, operate it successfully, and expand outreach significantly, with minimal outside subsidies;

they would help spread the program from VDC to VDC and from district to district. In October 1998 Pact adopted the use of Appreciative Planning and Action as the basic framework for delivering the program to the field.15

Participation in Action: Building Ownership among Women from the Beginning

In creating the Women’s Empowerment Project Pact has "broken the mold" to develop a new field implementation strategy that begins with Empowerment literacy. This

approach, from the start, puts women in charge of developing and running their own savings, credit, and micro-enterprise programs. This project is now being implemented in the field through a specially adapted version of APA, the Empowerment Mobilization Approach (EMA). EMA provides women with a tool for building success upon success that gives them the self-confidence, skills, and track record they need to take increasing leadership roles in their families, communities, and the proposed "next generation" of WEP; in that phase of the project women can use their new skills and tools ultimately to reach, teach, and empower even larger numbers of rural women.

A woman leader from Phakel village, Makwanpur, makes the first of a series of pledges that raised over Rs.50,000, ultimately leading to the construction of a new school. Meetings like this piloted the use of APA in the Women’s Empowerment Project with 100,000 women.

The appreciative tools of APA and EMA have been adapted, tested, and used by the Pact/ECTA team to address the special roles and requirements of rural women in Nepal. These tools have been designed specifically to energize, mobilize, empower, and draw out the full creative capacities of women to take leadership roles in their families and communities, to increase their contributions to family incomes, and to take their rightful role in the eradication of poverty and powerlessness.

Women Building Success on SuccessSome results of the initial application of the APA approach within the Women's

Empowerment Project during its initial six months in the field included:

• Application of the APA approach in selected villages to familiarize Pact/ECTA staff with the process, allow them to practice using it before project implementation, and assess its impact over the short term. From the first of these interactions one group of 8-10 women, who told the team in October 1998 that they had been talking about building latrines for their families for several

15 The Asia Foundation (TAF), working closely with Pact and ECTA, provides an additional program component for women, focusing on legal rights, responsibilities, and advocacy.

years, pledged to break stones from the rock ledges outside the village within the coming month. Another group from a very poor fishing community pledged to start a savings club on their own to help them generate funds for improved equipment.

Results: A follow-up visit revealed that the group of 8-10 women had, without outside intervention, grown to 22 and that collectively they had broken out and collected several tons of stones for their latrine project. Women in the fishing group, to date, had raised Rs. 1,050 for their savings fund.

• Orientation for over 200 local NGOs which have major responsibility for field implementation and support of WEP’s 6,500 women's groups; this task had initially been deemed extremely difficult because the NGOs would not be receiving the levels of support to which they had become accustomed under heavily subsidized development programs.

Results: Initial hostility and suspicion virtually disappeared with the application of the APA approach and local NGOs joined the initiative with enthusiasm rather than doubt.

ª NGOs to enroll 125,000 women in the program. Despite skepticism among many local and international NGOs about WEP’s ambitious targets and a supposed reluctance or inability of women to pay the small fees involved, the program was faced with an unanticipated dilemma.

Results: All initial targets were substantially exceeded. By late 1998 400 NGOs and over 300,000 women had sought to join the program, far in excess of WEP capacity.

• Seek contributions of at least Rs. 15 for registration and Rs. 7 for each of the books and self-instructional modules involved in Pact’s Empowerment literacy and Women in Business programs. The fees, to be set by the women's groups, must be paid up front, but are deposited as non-refundable contributions to their group savings funds.

Results: Women in all groups starting the program not only came forward with the required fees, but a number of groups decided collectively to increase the fees beyond the recommended minimums in order to add to their savings funds. The average fee charged for each book was nearly Rs. 10, although some groups charged double or triple the minimum price.

Beyond using APA approaches for developing, implementing, and assessing the "women-to-women for development" field program, Pact and ECTA have subsequently undertaken the following supplementary activities built around the appreciative approach:

• Developed techniques that have specific and positive impacts by working through the women's study groups for energizing, empowering and mobilizing rural women and their own resources to change their life circumstances

• Measured and evaluated the impacts of these tools, using quantitative, qualitative, and participatory research methods, and linking these with Pact's comprehensive MIS monitoring system that includes all 6,500 groups and 125,000 women

• Production of publications and audio-video records, including a short video on the APA process, to share the findings of this mission of discovery and empowerment

• Establishing an informal internet dialogue and network for the ongoing exchange of news, developments, problems, solutions, evolution, and impacts of women's empowerment efforts

Women lining up to make purchases from a shop opened by one of their group members. A program of literacy, savings, credit, and village banking delivered through an appreciative Empowerment Mobilization Approach encouraged women to share their successes, build dreams for their daughters and granddaughters, make plans to realize these dreams, and take action to get started. Within WEP’s 3 year field program almost 90,000 women had started their own micro-enterprises which, by 2001, were turning over gross revenues of $10 million annually.

Getting Results:Winning Awards and Exceeding Targets

The results of these unique empowerment initiatives, coupled with the appreciative approach that permeated the management and delivery of the program in the field, have been impressive. After 3 years of field implementation, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) and Dubai Municipality selected the Women’s Empowerment Project as a winner of the 2000 Dubai International Award.

The World Bank's Development Marketplace Competition in 2000 doubly acknowledged WEP as finalist and winner among 1156 nominees in two areas: First for its uniquely successful women's village banking program and, second, for the APA-based empowerment mobilization strategy that now involves 125,000 women in 6,500 economic groups in 21 Terai districts. Japan and the World Bank place WEP among the top ten most innovative development programs in 2001 and in 2002 WEP was given still another award by the World Bank for a new HIV/AIDS initiative—altogether 4 international awards in 3 years. What is of special interest in this saga regarding the development and application of appreciative tools is that many of WEP’s impressive results can be related directly or indirectly to WEP’s commitment to its APA-based Empowerment Mobilization Approach.

Data from the project's MIS surveys revealed that this USAID-funded initiative had met or exceeded virtually all year 3 targets at least 6 months ahead of schedule and achieved these results at substantially lower cost than anticipated. These achievements were reflected in the experience of Sukarani Chauhan, a Muslim woman in Betahani, Banke District.

I am now literate and earning a good monthly income. My husband and my sisters-in-law treat me with more respect. I have been able to remove the veil of ignorance in my life because of my courage, my determination, and the encouragement I received from women in my WEP group.

From Inquiry to Impact: Getting Results Prior to Intervention16

WEP’s MIS surveys have led to the discovery of an unexpected synergy between appreciative research and empowerment: a positive approach to inquiry itself can have a positive impact on social and economic change. With WEP MIS monitoring surveys being conducted every 6 months, it is relatively easy to track the impact of each of the program interventions as it is introduced sequentially. Thus data on impacts can be measured before and after any specific piece of the program is introduced. The following table summarizes the findings of WEP surveys through June 2000.

From plans to action: Women using the APA process to share their successes, dreams, and plans for the future at one of the 650 WEP mobile workshops that take place monthly.

16 Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., “Women’s Empowerment Project: From Inquiry to Impact—Getting Results Prior to Intervention.” Kathmandu, Nepal, August 2000

Objectives and Results Indicators: Progress to Date, June 2000Objectives& ResultsIndicators

November 1998 - MIS 1

-pre-interventionTargeted Groups

June 1999 - MIS 2-6 mos. resultsActual Participants

June 2000 - MIS 4-18 mos. resultsActual Participants

Increased spending on family well-being:Average woman has:

• Rs. 129 in savings• Rs. 629 in loans• Rs. 4,913 avg. loan size• Rs. 42 in ME earnings• Rs. 9 monthly savings

• Rs. 387 in savings• Rs. 591 in loans• Rs. 4,613 avg. loan size• Rs. 312 in ME earnings• Rs. 18 monthly savings

• Rs. 697 in savings• Rs. 1,661 in loans• Rs. 4,016 avg. loan size• Rs. 2,232 in ME earnings• Rs. 26 monthly savings

Initiate collective actions for social change

• 44,000 collective actions for change



Provision of literacy services

No literacy interventions:

• 33,000 women pass literacy test

Empowerment Literacy introduced

• 93,000 women pass literacy test

Women in Business series introduced • 123,000 women pass literacy test

Provision of economic development services:• Village Banking• Micro- enterprise (ME)• Total Savings• Group loans circulated• Micro-

enterprise earnings/sales

No economic interventions introduced:

• 111,000 women saving • 20,000 with loans • 20,000 in business • 4,000 meet earning target

• $ 250,000 savings • $ 433,000 group loans • $ 72,000 ME

earnings/sales

Women in Business series not yet introduced:


• $ 750,000 savings • $ 250 ,000 group loans (est.) • $ 600,000 ME earnings/sales

Village banking in process, micro enterprise not yet introduced:


• $1.2 million savings • $1 million loans • $4 million ME earnings/sales

These data indicate an unexpected phenomenon: both the number of women with businesses and their earnings increased dramatically prior to the introduction of the interventions specifically directed at stimulating micro-enterprises. In the 12 months from June 1999 to June 2000 the number of women with micro-enterprises rose four-fold from 19,000 to 76,000. During that same period women’s gross earnings from their micro-enterprises increased seven-fold, from $600,000 to $4 million, before the micro-enterprise book, and related training materials had been introduced.

Two factors appear to account for these unusual results: Specific empowerment messages integrated into all literacy and village banking

materials, particularly in support of micro-enterprise Women learning from women: the empowerment stimulated by the APA approach used

throughout the program to encourage women to share their successes and take action to increase these successes

First, and not unexpectedly, a portion of the remarkable increase is related to the fact that micro-enterprise messages are woven into all Women in Business materials, including empowerment literacy and village banking, thus providing encouragement to women considering starting a business. Stories and discussions involve women who are in business or hoping to start an enterprise. Yet this only partially explains the early and extraordinary growth, particularly when compared to somewhat slower growth rates for loans and for collective actions, for which specific interventions were directly provided during this same 12-month period.

Thus, it is necessary to examine the second factor that is proving important in explaining this growth: the empowering nature of the program’s APA foundations. APA is used to introduce all Women in Business materials, to conduct training and training of trainers sessions, and to conduct

the 600 monthly mobile workshops that involve representatives from all 6,500 women’s groups. A similar approach has been used in the design and implementation of the participatory MIS surveys. The MIS inquiry focuses mainly on achievements rather than problems. According to regular staff reports, direct field observations, an October 1999 USAID mid-term assessment, and recent field investigations conducted by a micro-finance expert, this actively positive framework underlying all Pact activities is having a clear impact on savings, micro-enterprises, earnings, and collective actions undertaken by the women’s groups. The micro-finance specialist summed up the nature of this phenomenon:

Is the WEP program sustainable? Yes, because Pact is using AI. The groups I talked to said they could keep their village banks going even if the program stopped., and most groups thought they could help others…. WEP is successful because it incorporates… innovative and pioneering features…[including] the use of an Appreciative Inquiry form of dialogue… that asks participants not to focus on the problems they have, which essentially has them dwell on the impossibility of their situation, but on the opportunities they have to improve their lives and their community.

In sum, WEP’s MIS surveys, corroborated by field observations, are demonstrating an important synergy between appreciative research and empowerment: the use of a positive approach to inquiry and assessment is itself demonstrating a positive impact on social and economic change among poor and disadvantaged women in rural Nepal, empowering them to take direct action to improve their lives and their incomes.

From Inquiry to Action: Habitat for Humanity’s Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Program

Under an entirely separate and unrelated initiative, Habitat for Humanity International, an organization now working in 60 countries worldwide and famous for its global program to eradicate poverty housing, in 1999 embarked on a 3 year initiative to develop a strong participatory planning, monitoring, and evaluation (P/PME) system. Funded by a grant from USAID, Habitat’s IMPACD17 program seeks to measure and institutionalize the broad community and organizational impacts of Habitat programs, particularly those ‘beyond houses.’ Habitat’s objective is to build a strong participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation process, first in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala, to measure the impacts of Habitat’s programs ‘beyond houses,’ and then share that system with its other programs worldwide.

Aware of the Appreciative Inquiry process from organizational development and other sources, Habitat took the innovative step of exploring how this process might contribute to its initiative. Hearing of the work we were doing in Nepal, one of the IMPACD programs’ three pilot countries,18 Habitat asked me to help design a new type of P/PME program -- one that includes elements of the appreciative process. Results such as those evident from the Pact Women’s Empowerment Project were beginning to demonstrate the potential for positive inquiry to result in positive action. Thus, we reasoned, if Habitat were to engage in a successful P/PME programs with an appreciative twist, not only should it be possible to measure the positive impacts of the Habitat housing programs for families, communities, and the organization as a whole, but to have that process of inquiry help promote even more such positive impacts.

17 “Impact Measurement Partnership and Community Development “ (IMPACD) Program18 Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala are the pilot projects under the IMPACD program; India, Bangladesh, India, and Thailand are involved in Regional and Area IMPACD activities. By the end of the project (2002) the indicators and instruments are to be disseminated throughout the Habitat organization.

While still in its early stages, and only a part of a broader P/PME system, this appreciative approach to participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation is already showing some promise. By late 2000 about a dozen P/PME workshops had been held or planned with Habitat Affiliates, and with national, regional, and area offices in Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, as well as in Habitat’s international PME conference in Americus, Georgia. Ranging from 1 hour to 5 days, these workshops engaged homeowners, staff, and local and national board members to share their discoveries of

impacts ‘beyond houses,’ dream of even greater impacts in the future, design concrete plans for beginning to realize those dreams, deliver concrete commitments to start the process, and develop their own indicators and tools for measuring the impacts and reporting these to their own local staff and board members.19 As a result of these ‘bottom-up’ initiatives, local affiliates in Nepal designed a self-monitoring format for measuring and reporting their progress to their local stakeholders. Copies of these reports are filed with the national offices, from which Habitat is drawing the first data that will track progress in the future.20

Homeowners and staff from Polunnaruwa Affiliate, Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka, working on their Dream of a future that includes broad community impacts beyond houses.

Beyond the development of this self-monitoring form, additional impacts directly related to the appreciative P/PME process being used are already being observed, although it is still premature to draw definitive conclusions. At a national office workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal, participants made commitments to support the improvement of education among Habitat homeowner children where they were aware of need. Within an

19 A workshop outline for a typical appreciative P/PME workshop is attached as Annex 2.20 A copy of the self-reporting forms developed in Nepal is attached as Annex 3.

hour of the end of the workshop one staff member had obtained commitments from a government department to provide scholarships for children of poor Habitat families. At a Pokhara workshop participants made an action plan for local fundraising and by the end of the day had meetings scheduled with potential donors. In Sri Lanka participants started an income-generation program and before the day was out had obtained commitments from the local agriculture officer to provide training for kitchen gardening. What started as an inquiry into impacts was already contributing positively to the generation of additional impacts, clearly ‘beyond houses.’

Beyond houses: Habitat for Humanity English teachers from Japan, together with local students, re-awaken the spirit of self-help and volunteerism in Surkhet, Nepal. Habitat’s P/PME program seeks to measure variables including volunteerism, health, education, and other broad community impacts of housing.

ConclusionThe key elements for a new approach to development, change, and participatory

planning, monitoring and evaluation are already in place and Pact/Nepal, ECTA, SAGUN, The Mountain Institute, Karuna Management, and Habitat for Humanity International are taking a leadership role in Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. Together and/or independently, they have had an important role to play in bringing this potentially powerful approach to bear on problems elsewhere, to strengthen, test, and disseminate participatory research and devilment approaches that empower rural people and their groups. New tools drawing on the principles of Appreciative Inquiry are now available that are building the capacity of organizations and rural people, including disadvantaged women, to develop their confidence and skills, to enable them to take leadership roles in their families and communities, and to help reverse the cycles of poverty and powerlessness in which so many of them have been trapped for generations Nepal and elsewhere around the globe.

ANNEX 1Women’s Empowerment Project (WEP)

EMPOWERMENT MOBILIZATIONThe Appreciative "2 hr. 7D"

Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., Ph.D. August 2000

From Appreciative Planning and Action (APA) to the

Empowerment Mobilization Approach (EMA)The '4-Ds' Grow to '7-Ds'

l Discovery-- Asking positive questions, seeking what works, what

empowers, what gives life to women and their groups; when have we, as women, felt particularly excited, energized, empowered?

2 Dream -- Visioning of what could be, where we want to go, what

we want for our daughters, our granddaughters?3 Design

-- Making an action plan based on what we can do for ourselves

4 Delivery-- Making personal commitments

These '4-Ds' of APA have evolved, during the transition to 'Empowerment Mobilization,' to '7-Ds,' reflecting WEP's commitments to action, reflection, and celebration for enhancing the empowerment of rural women.

5 'Do it Now!'-- Start taking action, now! Take small symbolic

steps together, right now, before adjourning the meeting

6 Dialogue/Discussion-- Reflecting on the process we’ve just gone through

together; learn from what we did today; discussion, dialogue on 'the best' and 'even better,' and personal commitments for replication and sustainability

7 Dance & Drum! -- Celebrating our successes, enjoy, sing, dance, share

stories and humor; enhance our commitment to 'joy in work.'

Applying the “7Ds”:A 2 hour Model for a Women’s Group Meeting21

1 Discovery30 min

a Draw a picture of the happiest moment in your lifeOptional extra: Draw a picture of the most successful, fulfilling group or

activityIntroduce yourself and share your picture, tell us about it

b Group activityDraw a "Success Map/Picture" that shows the achievement of your group, of

what you are most proud, what you have done with little or no outside help

c Define "empowerment" Thinking about your pictures/maps suggests words which help us define

the concept of 'empowerment' -- When did you feel 'empowered' and what were the underlying reasons for that?

2 Dream20 min

a Close your eyes for a minute and imagine the future you would like for your children, grandchildren, 10-20 years from now (Time frame flexible)

b Draw a "Future Map/Picture" that includes the main elements of your dream, your vision of the future you seek

c Share your drawing and explain its main features3 Design

20 mina Discuss in your group what steps you can take to start to achieve your visionb Make a basic plan of actions to be taken over the coming year with resources

and people within your own group, organization (Time frame flexible)e.g.: What, where, when, how, by whom

("The hand of progress" -- 5 fingers: What, where, when, how, who)

c Share your plans in plenary (Save time: share Designs together with Delivery)

4 Delivery 10 mina Discuss within your group what each of you can do yourself during the coming

week or month to start implementing your plan; think what you are ready to do yourself to initiate the action plan (Time frame flexible)

b Turn by turn stand and tell us your personal commitment for the coming week, month for the initiation of your plan

5 "Do it Now!" 15 mina Discuss briefly in your groups, and then in the full group one simple activity

you can all undertake together right now, "before the tea comes," during the next 10-15 min., to actually get started or an action that symbolically shows your commitment to taking "action now"

b "Do it"6 Dialogue/Discussion/Reflection 10 min

Discuss together what happened during this meetingWhat were the best moments, favorite moments?

21 The EMA model has been applied in as short a time as 40 min. for demonstration purposes, and for workshops of up to 3 days. 2-4 hours have proven to be reasonable times for effective meetings with WEP groups, given the busy lives of rural women. The actual time for a meeting is best set after consulting with the group on how much time they would like to spend. EMA timing should accommodate women’s time priorities. Many WEP EMA meetings start with a “5 min. 4D” meditation, demonstrating that the basic process can be adapted to whatever time is available.

What could be 'even better?' If we do a program like this again tomorrow, or anytime in the near future, how could it be even better than what we did today?

What can we each do to make that happen?7 Dance and Drum

15 minBring out the drums and flutes, sing a song or two, dance, tell jokes.... ENJOY

Caveat: APA is not a 'Quick Fix'There is no 'Cook-Book' APA is a "Learning Process" that was born in the field and constantly revised

through a 6 months training, testing, and development program involving dozens of villages and over 1,000 people. It must continue to evolve, adapt, and respond to the real world. This is where it is today. You can help it grow.

While, like any new technique, APA could risk the dangers of becoming a fad, of being misused or oversimplified, or more seriously, not followed-up appropriately, it is based on a profound and revolutionary approach to looking at the world, to the way we interact and relate to ourselves and others, and to overcoming obstacles.

Because of its focus on the positive, on success, APA risks becoming trivialized by the momentum, power, and historical commitment of academic, political, and professional disciplines which have traditionally drawn their validity from the search for, analysis, dissection, and articulation of problems and failures and the outward allocation of blame.

Robert Chambers’ advice about PRA should always be heeded by APA practitioners:

"Use your own best judgment at all times."APA practitioners who use the "Reflection" step wisely, listening to their

colleagues and participants carefully and thoughtfully, will learn something new from every APA session and make adaptations and modifications, from minor to major, for application in subsequent sessions. The skilled APA practitioner, goes by the motto:

"No two APA sessions should ever be the same.If APA becomes mechanical, the sessions become boring, the practitioner has stopped learning."

Some Basic Principles for APA PractitionersAppreciative Planning and Action activities and programs are conducted drawing on

the basic approach developed by Robert Chambers for Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and complemented by principles borrowed from Covey Management, Future Search, Open Space Technology, and other relevant programs:• "Put the Last First -- Put the First Last"

--- Empower those usually left out, including illiterates. No exercise should require, expect, or even suggest the need for literacy... (All activities and materials should be visual, using pictures, maps, diagrams drawn by the participants themselves)

-- APA must involve women and disadvantaged groups directly and ensure that they have prominent roles in meetings and/or are involved through separate meetings or groups within meetings; never miss the chance to work with those who turn up but follow this by seeking "those who are not here"... and to understand "why?" That is the task of good follow-up!

• "Hand over the stick" (marker, and/or maps)-- Average people should be at the front of the meeting showing and explaining;

facilitators, staff, local leaders should be at the back listening and learning-- All "Success Maps," "Future Maps," and Action Plans must be left with the people who created them; they are their planning tools to be kept and referred to by them, not to be carried away by facilitators (who are welcome to make copies, of course)

• "They are the experts, we are here to learn" -- Facilitators use APA not to teach but to learn, as a tool to understand the richness,

value, and utility of indigenous knowledge and help local people to appreciate, acknowledge, and honor who they are and the wisdom, know-how, and contributions they have and can continue to make for their own advancement

• "Ready - Fire - Aim" or "Plunge and Reflect"-- Learn by doing; take action, try something and then see how it works; adjust

process through reflection after trials; never stop learning; never stop improving the process

• "Begin with the end in mind" "First things first" 22 -- Focus on main purpose, "must know" topics and exercises; use additional exercises,

or probe further only on a 'need to know' basis; remember: despite the appearance of having lots of time, rural people, especially women, have enormous workloads; their time is as valuable as anyone's and we should respect that

• "Whoever is here are the right people, wherever we are is the right place, whatever time it is, is the right time"

-- APA should be informal, flexible, responsive, and take advantage of opportunities for being proactive; doing first things first; working with those who step forward to start; making arrangements for additional meetings with those who aren't involved in the first contacts... Build in follow-up to ensure that balance is achieved over time

• "Take Time!" -- Don't rush. APA should be relaxed and informal; meetings should be publicized in

advance; teams should preferably arrive in the community the night before the meeting the next morning; informal "Discovery" can begin informally as people gather, then be summarized when meeting starts

• "Turn Problems into Opportunities" -- APA does not avoid or ignore problems, but instead recognizes and embraces

problems by seeking positive ways of looking at them and turning them into constructive action steps

• "Enjoy"-- A successful APA program should contribute to 'joy in work.' -- Keep sessions light and enjoyable; include a 'celebration' at the end

22 Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People" provides an excellent complement to the APA process and supports the planning and action steps, where the principles, 'Be proactive' and 'First things first' have special relevance; New York, Fireside, Simon & Schuster, 1989.

-- The well-equipped APA team always brings a drum and flutes.

ANNEX 2 Nepal Habitat For HumanityPokhara Affiliate P/PME Appreciative Planning & Action (APA) Workshop

29 May 2000

With the Pokhara Habitat Affiliate we combined Appreciative Planning and Action (APA) and Open Space Technology (OST) in a workshop for Board and staff members, along with our new Nepal Habitat PME team, as part of our new Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (P/PME) program. For those new to our work in Nepal, Appreciative Planning and Action is our 7-D adaptation of the classic AI 4-D model, which we use with rural communities, participatory conservation, and the empowerment of women. The results of combining APA and OST were excellent -- exceeding our expectations The workshop was completed in a single 10 am to 5 pm day, and ended with a lively round of song and dance to celebrate the considerable achievements of the Affiliate and this remarkable day of planning and action. In brief, we had the group (about 20) share appreciative Discoveries of their personal moments of success, joy... followed by the high points of their work with Habitat (using our Empowerment Art techniques, in which we have them do lots of drawings). From there we had groups come up with their Dreams for an ideal Pokhara Affiliate some 5 years in the future... including their ideas for becoming an 'affiliate of excellence.' Again we had them create drawings representing their dreams. At this point, turning to the Design phase, we introduced Open Space Technology directly, asking each participant to create an 'advertisement' for something specific s/he would like to do to start to realize their dreams. We had them come forward and 'sell' their proposal, complete with drums and cymbals and photos being snapped of each 'advertiser.' After presentation, they posted their ads and then self-clustered them where they found links and/or similarities. With the help of one of our AI/PME facilitators, and lots of lively discussion, these were further clustered until we had just 4 'Task Forces" of about 4-5 members each. Task Forces then went to work to design 1 year and 3 month action plans, including specifics on 'what, when, where, how, and who.' We were surprised, even amazed, at how fast and how detailed these plans were developed and the number of specific commitments made by individuals regarding implementation. Thus we combined, spontaneously, the heart of both the Design and Delivery steps as we usually use them in Appreciative Planning and Action. As we approached the latter part of the afternoon we then turned to our special 'Do it now!' step, asking each Task Force to pick a few things from their action plans that they might collectively and/or individually get started on 'right now.' In less than 30 minutes, Board meeting dates had been set for the next day to start a major fund-raising campaign, appointments had been made with local officials to start a training program, designs for an action-research study started, and a visit paid to a nearby Habitat family to pretest a PME mini-questionnaire for assessing the broad community impacts of the Habitat housing program to be conducted by the local Habitat Homeowners Committee. A short 'Discussion/Dialogue' reflection session revealed that participants really enjoyed both the APA and OST exercises. Participants were proud not only of the achievements of their affiliate (and the 40 houses already built in 2 years), but of the start they had made today on concrete plans and specific actions towards realizing a dream of even better, plus specific impacts and indicators for measuring progress. At 5 pm everyone broke into song and started to dance...the drum started beating, cymbals clashed, and a great time was had by all. 10 am to 5 pm. Plans, action, and a participatory monitoring program in place.

ANNEX 3Bibliography

"Strategic Planning, Phase II (DRAFT)," Responding to Increased Numbers and Village Banking Opportunities: The Role of Appreciative Planning and Action Approaches, Malcolm J. Odell, Kathmandu: Women's Empowerment Program (WEP), Pact/Nepal, January 1999

Lessons from the Field: Applying Appreciative Inquiry, Sue Annis Hammond and Cathy Royal, Plano TX: Practical Press, 1998

"Appreciative Planning and Action: Experience from the Field in Evolving a New Strategy for Empowering Communities in Nepal," Malcolm Odell, in Sue Annis Hammond and Cathy Royal, Lessons from the Field: Applying Appreciative Inquiry, Plano TX: Practical Press, 1998

"Tea House Trekking: The Evolution of a Grass-Roots Tourism Institution in Nepal," with Wendy Lama in Sustainability in Mountain Tourism, Malcolm Odell, Innsbruck-Vienna, Austria: Studienverlag, and New Delhi, India: Book Faith India, 1998

"Building Partnerships and Empowering Communities," An Appreciative Vision for a CARE Strategy for Global Grass-Roots Development, Paper Prepared for CARE /GEM Partnership Building Workshop. Bangkok, Thailand, Chandi P. Chapagain and Malcolm J. Odell, CARE/Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal, November 1998

"Issues in Participatory Development: From Participatory Rural Appraisal to Discovery, Planning, and Action, A Personal History of Involvement in the Development and Adaptation of PRA and Evolution of New Approaches for the Empowerment of Rural Women, with Thoughts on 'Next-Steps,'" Malcolm J. Odell, Kathmandu, Nepal, October 1998

"From Conflict to Cooperation: Appreciative Approaches to Building Rural Partnerships for Hydropower Development in the Himalayas," Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., Kathmandu, Nepal, October 1998

"From Protest to Partnership: Village Organizations and Environmental Protection, A Review of Community Participation Activities in Support of Hydropower Development," Malcolm Odell, with Rajendra Thanju and Pranav Acharya, Kali Gandaki Environmental Management Unit, UNDP South Asia Poverty Alleviation Program, and Impregilo, SpA, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 1998

"Appreciative Planning and Action (APA )," Chandi P. Chapagain and Malcolm J. Odell, in Sahabhagita, Vol. 3, no. 3, 2054, Kartik-Poush, Kathmandu, Nepal, November 1997

"Makalu Barun: The First Four Years and The Next Generation, A Review of Phase I with Lessons for Phase II," Malcolm Odell, The Mountain Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal: July 1997

"Appreciative Planning and Action , Experience from the Field in Evolving a New Strategy for Empowering Communities," Malcolm J. Odell, The Mountain Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal, June/July 1997

"Tips and Advice to Some Friends for using Appreciative Planning and Action ," Malcolm J. Odell, Kathmandu: The Mountain Institute, June 1997

"Some Experience and Thoughts on Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action: Field Training and Village Practicum, Hatiya, Nepal," Lamu Sherpa with Malcolm Odell, The Mountain Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal: May 1997

"Sakaratmak Yojama Tarjuma tatha Karyanwyan," (Appreciative Planning and Action -APA -in Nepali), Chandi Prasad Chapagain, Malcolm Odell. Paper prepared for TMI's APA Workshop, Kathmandu, Nepal: CARE/Nepal and the Mountain Institute, May 21-23, 1997.

"Listening to the Villages of Makalu," An Appreciative Inquiry (AI ) Approach to Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA ); Pilot AI /PRA Activities in Villages of Bung & Chheskam, East Nepal; Summary Report, Malcolm Odell, The Mountain Institute, Kathmandu, January 1997

"Participation, Empowerment, and Agriculture Extension: Lessons from World Bank Task Managers and Division Chiefs," draft report to World Bank, AGRTN, ENVDR, Malcolm Odell, Washington, DC, January 1994

Toward Sustainable Development Benefits: A Reorientation Study for the Tribal Areas Development Project and the North West Frontier Area Development Project, A Community-based Regional Planning and Development Strategy, (Malcolm J. Odell, Editor, and study team leader, 3 vol.), Development Economics Group, Louis Berger International, Inc., Washington, DC, and Peshawar, Pakistan, January 1992

"Local Initiatives: Building Blocks for Community Participation," Malcolm Odell, in Toward Sustainable Development Benefits, above, January 1992

"Starting a Community Participation Initiative: Participatory Rural Appraisal and Planning," in Toward Sustainable Development Benefits, Malcolm Odell, above, January 1992

"People, Power, and a New Role for Agricultural Extension: Issues and Options Involving Local Participation and Groups," Malcolm Odell, in Investing in Rural Extension: Strategies and Goals, (Gwyn E. Jones, editor), London and New York: Elsevier Applied Science Publishers, 1986

"Local Government: Traditional and Modern Roles of the Village Kgotla," Malcolm Odell, in Politics, Rural Development Policy and Proximity to South Africa: The Evolution of Modern Botswana, Louis Picard, ed., London and Lincoln, Nebraska: Rex Collings and Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1985

"Local Government Administration: Decentralization Management, Community Participation, and Local Revenue Generation from a Comparative Perspective," Malcolm Odell, Washington DC: Graduate School USDA, April 1985

Getting Started: Diagnosis in Farming Systems Research and Extension, Training Manual for field staff. Gainesville: Farming Systems Support Project, University of Florida, (edited by Malcolm J. Odell, Marcia Odell), April, 1985

Decentralization Management from a Comparative Perspective: Planning for Community Participation and Local Revenue Generation. Training manual and workshop for rural Development Specialists and Senior Managers from Egypt. Washington, DC: Graduate School USDA, in English and Arabic, Malcolm Odell, with Paul Eberts, December 1984

"The Individual, the Organization, and the Environment: A Management Training Course," Malcolm Odell, Robert Ventre Associates, Newburyport, Mass., August 1984

Local Institutions and Development in Botswana, Malcolm Odell, with Susan G. Wynne, UBS students, and staff of Rural Sociology Unit, Gaborone: Government Printer, April 1981

"The Social Side of Social Forestry: Village Forests in Central India," Social Soundness Analysis for USAID Social Forestry Project, Madhya Pradesh, Malcolm Odell, New Delhi, India: USAID, December 1980

Sociological Research and Rural Development Policy: A Review with Policy Implications of Socio-economic Research Conducted by or in Association with the Rural Sociology Unit, Malcolm Odell, Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana," Gaborone: Government Printer, May 1980

Divide and Conquer: Allotment among the Cherokee, Public Land Series, Arno Press, (New York Times), Marcia Larson Odell, 1977

"What Happened to the Public in Public Television?" a study of rural development and modern communications in Northern Appalachia, USA; Ph. D. dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., l974

ai/ravi · web viewwhen we took them at their word, as we did one afternoon in a grungy market town...

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