This section introduces and illustrates a range of participatory tools that can be used to describe and analyze the micro-level poverty and distributional impacts of policy reform. Participatory research, like qualitative research, tends to use more contextual methods and elicit more qualitative and interpretive information. However, participatory methods bring with them an important additional philosophical commitment to respect local knowledge as well as to facilitate local ownership and control of data generation and analysis. In this way, participatory research can be empowering for different groups of stakeholders. Participatory methods are by no means restricted to qualitative data output. People map, count, estimate, compare, and value using numbers during participatory research, often producing empirical insights that are very difficult to capture through conventional methods. Participatory methods are often quick and efficient, producing data in a timely fashion for evidence-based analysis and action. Through robust sampling and triangulation, participatory research can generate numerical data that are representative, comparable, and generalizable. The tools presented here are categorized into three broad groups (see table 1):
Table 1. Participatory Tools for Micro-Level Poverty and Social Impact Analysis Method | Summary Description | 1. Poverty characteristics, incidence, and distribution | Transect walk | A tool for describing and showing the location and distribution of resources, features, the landscape, and main land uses along a given transect. | Community profile | An overview of a community containing information on a broad range of factors (such as environmental/natural features and management, sociodemographic characteristics, political and economic structures, local institutions, economic activities and livelihoods, basic household and community facilities, and social organization). | Social mapping | A visual method of showing the relative location of households and the distribution of people of different types (such as male, female, adult, child, landed, landless, literate, illiterate, and so on) together with the social structure and institutions of an area. | Community resource mapping | A method of showing information regarding the occurrence, distribution, access to and use of resources; topography; human settlements; and activities of a community from the perspective of community members; this method enables people to picture resources and features and to show graphically the significance attached to them. | Wealth ranking | This method involves the ranking of different individuals, households, or communities according to locally developed criteria of well-being. Performing such exercises for communities as well as households or individuals illustrates the significance of factors and assets that affect poverty at the community, group, or household level. | Time Line Life histories | Good for identifying trends and changes to poverty over time; very important to triangulate information with secondary review, interviews, and survey data. | 2. Understanding poverty dynamics: assets, vulnerability, and livelihood strategies | Risk mapping | Good for understanding the vulnerability context, delineating perceptions of risk at different levels, and examining the multiple risk and vulnerabilities (the most vulnerable will experience multiple risks) and concomitant vulnerabilities as a result of a policy change; risk mapping helps to identify the covariance of risk and the coincidence of (multiple) vulnerabilities that impact most severely on the poorest. | Risk indexing | A systematic approach to identify, classify, and order sources of risk and to examine differences in risk perception. | Seasonal calendar | A visual method of showing the distribution of seasonally varying phenomena (such as economic activities, resources, production activities, problems, illness/disease, migration, natural events/ phenomena, climate, and so on) over time. Nuances analysis of impact of policy change by revealing the seasonal variations in vulnerability and access to assets and resources. Useful for understanding the relationship between seasonally varying phenomena and livelihood strategies. | 24-hour calendar | A visual method of showing the way people allocate their time between different activities over a 24-hour period. Enables understanding of the impact of policy changes/implementation on daily schedules, workloads, and time use. Reveals differences in schedules and workloads between people from different social groups and at different times of year and can be used to look at the social impacts (for example, on health and education) of different workloads. | Asset wheel | A visual method of showing the different assets/resources and the linkages between them. It is useful for understanding differences in the asset bases of different social groups; establishing an asset baseline, which can be used to explore livelihood strategies/diversification and opportunities for and constraints to increasing asset holdings; and examining potential impacts of a policy change on the asset bases of different social groups. | Livelihood matrix scoring | A method of investigating preferred and prioritized livelihood options of population subgroups against specified criteria (rather than a description of current livelihood strategies). Contributes to an understanding of possible impacts of policy reform on livelihood options and preferences. | Entitlements matrix | A method of representing socially differentiated perceptions of and actual rights and entitlements, and understanding differences in the way they are applied to different groups of people (such as women and men, poorer households, different ethnic groups, and so on). Useful for identifying possible linkages between capacity and resources to claim rights and people’s capacity to deal with risk and vulnerability, as well as potential impacts of policy reform on rights and entitlements. | Causal flow diagram | A method of showing diagrammatically the causes, effects, and relationships between variables associated with policy change and poverty and social change. Traces differences in cause–effect relationships by different social groups. Reveals relationships between economic, political, social, and environmental factors. | 3. Institutional analysis | Institutional mapping/ Venn diagramming | A visual method of identifying and representing perceptions of key institutions (formal and informal) and individuals inside and outside a community as well as their relationships and importance. Enables understanding how different community members perceive institutions both within the community (in terms of decision making, accessibility, and services) and outside the community (in terms of participation, accessibility, and services). | Institutional perception mapping | A visual method of identifying and representing perceptions of key institutions (formal and informal) and individuals inside and outside a community as well as their relationships and importance to different social groups. Good for understanding the sets of social relations that mediate the transmission of a policy change. | Mobility mapping | A visual representation of people’s movements within and outside their community. Identifies issues and problems related to socially differentiated mobility and access to resources (such as land, water, health and education services, information, capital, decision making, and so on) and consequences of socially differentiated mobility for different social groups, their households, and livelihoods. Socially differentiated mobility within and outside a community can indicate differing levels of freedom, wealth, empowerment, and rights. |
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