SUMMARY DOCUMENT PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH APPROACHES - WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? The experience of the DFID Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) Programme 1995-2005

1. WHY A 'REVIEW' OF PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH? The objective of this summary document is to highlight the experience of the RNRRS over the past 10 years with respect to the design and application of participatory research approaches. Although the range and type of participatory research (PR) has expanded greatly over the past 30 years, the defining characteristic remains that these techniques and approaches seek to involve relevant stakeholders (e.g. farmers, fishers, extension officers, policy-makers etc), in some way - for example, helping to define problems and issues for research, collaborating in data and information gathering and analysis, and / or applying the findings of the research. The international literature clearly shows that the world-wide experience of PR has generated much debate, analysis and subsequent refinement of these approaches. The current review (albeit of a limited sample of all the projects available) was undertaken to contribute to this on-going process by drawing on a decade of research project experiences in a range of sectors - forestry, fisheries, agriculture, livestock in farming and plant-breeding - implemented throughout the world under the DFID RNRRS. 2. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH OPTION - BUT WHAT'S NEW? The function of development research is to generate new knowledge which can be used, in the context of the development process, to effect a desirable outcome - in fact every development paradigm is ultimately dependent upon the creation and application of new knowledge or the application of existing knowledge in new ways (DFID, 1998). Broadly speaking, the development process aims to increase people's welfare and in doing so to eradicate poverty. But it was well- recognised early-on that the underpinning research faced both a range of opportunities and constraints, as follows: Opportunities: - rural people often have in-depth knowledge about the production systems and the circumstances in which they operate which might be used as a basis to identify researchable constraints to development - if only this knowledge could be accessed by researchers; - involving local people in the research process itself might also increase the relevance (or buy-in), applicability and delivery of research findings to address development problems; - involving local people would change the nature of research in terms of developing relatively simple, rapid and widely generalisable field techniques, which did not rely on high levels of capacity or expertise or funding, and which might help to communicate and share relevant information between stakeholders and researchers, and facilitate the research and development process overall;