Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)

The beauty of most new and path-breaking ideas is that after they are shared; most people find them very obvious. Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), and its evolution into PRA is an approach which facilitates rural, illiterate communities to share the tremendous knowledge they have in a form which does not require literacy. Robert Chambers and Gordan Conway brought RRA to AKRSP(I), but AKRSP(I) modified it to a more participatory approach by involving the community in the analysis and planning from the information they had articulated. The first PRA by AKRSP(I) took place in Lathodara and Arena villages in Junagadh, Gujarat. In 1988, simultaneously, MYRADA and DDS in the south were also evolving RRA into Participatory Learning Approaches (PLA) etc. Many innovations evolved wealth ranking, topical PRA etc. An International workshop on PRA at Kabripathar village in tribal Gujarat in 1990 brought together many practioners, and much new learning. Now PRA is a part of the way most outsiders understand a rural community and is a mandatory part of most participatory government programmes.