Projects | Southern India - MYRADA
Trip Report 2: January - June, 2000
Kamasamudram, India

Beyond Problem Analysis: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Design and Deliver Environmental, Gender Equity and Private Sector Development Projects

Second Six-Month Report: January-June, 2000

1. Project goal
The goal of this project is to advance sustainable development and to facilitate sustainable livelihoods by providing governmental and non-governmental organizations in India with a better method of designing and delivering programs- one that identifies and reinforces a community's strengths, achievements and vision, rather than focusing on its problems, deficiencies and needs.

The purpose of this project is to build capacity within a network of 11 non-governmental development organizations (NGOs) in the use of appreciative inquiry. This is a new community development method that moves beyond participatory problem and needs analysis by instead identifying and building on past achievements and existing strengths within a community, establishing consensus around a shared vision of the future and constructing strategies and partnerships to achieve this vision.

2. Project objectives for the period January-June, 2000
The aim of the second six months of the project was to train a broader group Myrada project staff and their local partner organizations in the use of appreciative inquiry, to hold regional workshops to explore how the approach might be refined to make it more effective in a community development context and to understand how it can be used to achieve specific objectives such as environmental rehabilitation or watershed development.

Specific objectives of the second six-month period included:

• completing advanced training in appreciative inquiry for the core Myrada training team;
• completing training programs and fieldwork in appreciative inquiry for the Myrada CIDOW Project and KAWAD Partners at Holalkere, and for the Myrada Kadiri Project and ICEF partners at Kadiri;
• documenting the training and fieldwork to assist in the development of a field guide on appreciative inquiry;
• convening a regional workshop with Myrada staff and their partner organizations to discuss the fieldwork and, where necessary, refine the approach to make it more effective in a community development context;
• enhancing the project Internet site with segments from the training video and trip/progress reports; and
• developing a distribution strategy for the project video on appreciative inquiry in partnership with Myrada and DFID.

Except for holding a regional workshop, all of the specific objectives for the second six-month period were successfully implemented. The regional workshop was rescheduled for the third six-month period so that the project team could present two papers on the project at a two-week long IFAD workshop on participatory project design and implementation in July.

3. Core team members

• Jo-Ellen Parry, IISD - Project Manager and Community Development Specialist
• Saleela Patkar, Myrada - Local Project Co-ordinator and Community Development Specialist
• P. Vijaya Kumar - Project Officer, Myrada Holalkere Project
• P. Rajachary - Training Co-ordinator, Myrada/PLAN HD Kote Project
• Y. Ramesh - Sector Officer, Myrada Kadiri (KIPDOW) Project
• R. Raviprakash - Training Officer, Myrada Kollegal Hill Area Development Project, Hanur
• MK Venkatesh - Program Officer, Myrada

4. Project activities: January-June, 2000
Formation of core appreciative inquiry training team.
In order to successfully scale up the appreciative inquiry training while maintaining the integrity of the approach, a core IISD/Myrada appreciative inquiry training and support team was formed in order to:

• design and deliver future trainings;
• co-ordinate and oversee the ongoing transfer of skills in appreciative inquiry to Myrada and its partners;
• ensure that results of fieldwork are shared between projects; and
• liaise with the international development community.

Advanced training in appreciative inquiry for core team (January 31-February 7, 2000).
Four members of the core training team, including one from IISD and three from Myrada, received advanced training in North America in appreciative inquiry techniques. This allowed for a more effective co-training arrangement, and assisted in the rapid transfer of skills in appreciative inquiry to the field-staff at Myrada. It has also put the lead trainers in more direct contact with other appreciative inquiry practitioners, allowing them to remain informed of new applications of appreciative inquiry in community development.

Training programs and fieldwork completed in Holalkere and Kadiri.
The project team delivered the two trainings successively to reduce costs and allow time for three Myrada core team members to receive advanced training in appreciative inquiry. The programs took place for the Myrada CIDOW Project and KAWAD Partners at Holalkere, and for the Myrada Kadiri Project and ICEF partners at Kadiri.

Through the training the participants attained a clear understanding of the appreciative approach, allowing them to apply it successfully in the field. They also attained the skills needed to integrate appreciative inquiry into the wider range of activities and relationships in which they are involved.

Holalkere Workshop: February 21-25, 2000
The Holalkere workshop was the fifth appreciative inquiry workshop conducted within Myrada and the first workshop since three core team members, Vijay Kumar, Rajachary and Raviprakash received advanced training. The 28 participants came from 10 different Myrada projects and three partner organizations. The five faculty members included Jo-Ellen Parry, Saleela Patkar, Vijay Kumar, Rajachary and Raviprakash.

The training team planned the curriculum in detail on February 20 and modified it as necessary through the week. The training was intensive, starting at 6:00 a.m. with yoga, and typically ending at night around 10:00 p.m. Nevertheless, participants remained engaged and the energy and atmosphere of the workshops were excellent.

During the first three days, participants were exposed to the four stages of appreciative inquiry, and its psychosocial underpinnings. On the fourth day, participants went to the field to apply their skills. Participants tested the approach with a range of self-help groups, village development committees and families. All groups were informed that the activity was not part of their regular training program, but was being undertaken so that Myrada could explore better methods of interacting with community members. All of the groups were willing to put aside a full day to participate in the fieldwork.

The fieldwork component of the training was designed to give the Myrada staff an opportunity to undertake an appreciative inquiry in several local villages with the support of the training team. During the fieldwork, the participants led the groups through the first three stages of appreciative inquiry with questions and exercises specific to each group's particular context. The interview questions and protocols were planned the evening before based on the experience that the participants had gained during their training. On the fifth day, participants shared their experiences and discussed how future fieldwork could be improved. A report on the Holalkere workshop is included as Annex A.

Kadiri Workshop: February 28-March 3, 2000
Based on the success of the Holalkere workshop, the same program was repeated in Myrada's Kadiri project site. A total of 22 people from six Myrada projects and four partner organizations participated in the workshop, not including the training team (Jo-Ellen Parry, Saleela Patkar, M.K. Venkatesh, Y. Ramesh).

Through the training the participants attained a clear understanding of the appreciative approach, allowing them to apply it successfully in the field. They also attained skills that will allow them to further integrate appreciative inquiry into other activities in which they are involved. The post-workshop evaluation indicated that people's expectations were fulfilled. The participants indicated that they had obtained a clear understanding of appreciative inquiry and its application.

During the fieldwork, the participants were innovative. Within the protocols that they had developed in the classroom, they frequently experimented to determine the most effective methods of getting stories of peak moments and achievements, drawing out the contributing factors and building on these factors to establish dreams and action plans. They made use of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) exercises, where necessary, to communicate ideas or to get the villagers to illustrate various aspects of their achievements or dreams.

The participants found appreciative inquiry to be a structured way to move beyond problem analysis. Most people commented on the optimism and enthusiasm that appreciative inquiry generates, both among the villagers and among the extension staff. There was a general feeling that the action plans that were developed did not raise expectations of outside assistance, but rather led villagers to the conclusion that they could do most things themselves.

The participants also discovered that appreciative inquiry could be used across a wide range of groups and activities. They noted that the information it generated was often new, more detailed or more reliable than other methods currently in use. A report on the Kadiri workshop is included as Annex B.

Additional trainings
In response to Myrada's desire to scale up the appreciative inquiry training from the original work plan, a total of seven trainings were held from January to June. By March 2000, almost 50 per cent of Myrada's staff had received appreciative inquiry training. To date, over 250 people have participated in the workshops. A list of all of the training programs to date is presented below:

As a result of the training programs and subsequent project activities, the more than 200 community groups have been involved in an appreciative inquiry including:

1. Self-help groups (SHGs)
2. Watershed Development Associations
3. Watershed Implementation Committees
4. Gram Panchayats
5. SHG Federations
6. Children's clubs
7. Families and individuals
8. Village progressive farmers
9. Local resources management committees

Myrada found appreciative inquiry produced excellent results in all of these groups but the village progressive farmers, for which the staff faulted their own facilitation skills. In fact, Myrada considers the facilitation skills of its project staff to be the main limitation in applying appreciative inquiry for still greater effect. As such, they have initiated an intensive internal training program that will concentrate on building these skills. The training will be conducted by outside experts during August and September. It will be funded by the Swiss Development Corp (SDC).

Regional Workshop.
The second six-month workplan included convening a regional workshop on appreciative inquiry. The regional workshops are intended to be a forum for sharing experiences and refining the approach. The discussions at these workshops are expected to contribute to the development of the field guide on appreciative inquiry and to the project's Internet site. The first workshop had been scheduled for the end June; however, it was rescheduled for November so that the project team could present the project's findings at an IFAD/IIRR/ANGOK/Myrada workshop on participatory project design and implementation in July in Bangalore. The outcome of the workshop will be a resource kit for project managers and extension staff that will be distributed to all of IFADs projects in Asia.

The July IFAD workshop was very successful. Participants embraced appreciative inquiry as a major advance in participatory development. Jo-Ellen Parry and Saleela Patkar presented two papers, one summarizing the appreciative inquiry method; the second summarizing the IISD/Myrada project experience. A full report on the workshop and copies of the papers that were published in the resource kit will be included in the next six-month report.

Internet Site.
The project's multimedia Internet site http://www.iisd.org/ai/myrada.htm has proved to be an effective way of sharing information about the project with other organizations and individuals. During the last six months, the project site was expanded to include an appreciative inquiry primer and additional appreciative inquiry resources. Segments of the training video are also now available for viewing online. Contact information on the project and the video has allowed numerous organizations to obtain copies. To date, the site has been visited over 2,200 times.

Distribution strategy for the project video.
During a June 14 meeting between Janet Seeley (DFID First Secretary of Rural Development) and Jo-Ellen Parry (IISD Project Manager) a distribution strategy for the video was discussed. It was agreed that the existing strategy to market the video though the Internet and word of mouth was appropriate. The video has been offered at a low price ($20 Canadian from IISD or RS250 from Myrada) in order to promote the approach, yet recover duplication costs. Versions of the video are available in PAL and NTSC formats, making it accessible to development practitioners around the world.

5. Additional project activities
In addition to the above-mentioned activities, the project also generated several related activities between January and June that had not originally been planned. These activities included:

PLAN/Myrada pilot - using appreciative inquiry to develop local budgets for PLAN projects.
Given the success that appreciative inquiry had shown in initial applications at the community level, William D'souza of Myrada and Mr. Hemachandran of PLAN International initiated a pilot project to use appreciative inquiry with community groups in the Myrada/PLAN HD Kote project. The aim of the project is to work with local people to ensure that project budgets better reflect their priorities and aspirations. Myrada will develop three-year budgets based on the outcome of appreciative inquiry exercises. The project is starting in 10 communities, with the intention to expand it to 80 villages. The project was the outcome of the April 17-20 training in Dharmapuri, which Mr. Hemachandran attended. Myrada was very pleased to have such a senior representative of PLAN in attendance for the entire workshop.

Training of Adimman Grameen Bank staff - Dharmapuri District.
The Adimman Grameen Bank is a regional rural bank with a mission to focus on poverty and rural development. Recently, the bank has had difficulty recovering capital in its loan program. Consequently, it is at risk of being closed by the National Commercial Bank, which sponsors it. The Government of India has indicated that it will only recapitalize the bank if it focuses on building the capacity of local self-help groups and providing them with seed capital. The chairman of the bank sought Myrada's help to pilot an appreciative inquiry within five of the bank's branches in the hope that it would bring about an attitudinal change in its employees - one that recognized self-help groups as important and capable local level institutions. The initiative will involve training the bank staff in appreciative inquiry and self-help group formation and management.

Myrada staff appraisal.
Myrada recently applied the principles of appreciative inquiry to a project staff appraisal. The appraisal leader, Raviprakash, found that the technique worked well. People were very forthright and honest, yet the atmosphere was positive and forward-looking. Myrada is considering using the approach in other project appraisals.

Traditional Women's Council training in Manipur.
Members of the Traditional Women's Council from Ukhrul District in Manipur selected a group of local women to participate in a Myrada training program in self-help groups and watershed management. The intention was to provide the women with the skills and confidence to form and manage self-help groups. Myrada staff found the training very difficult during the first two days of the program. The women were not responsive to the ideas that Myrada was putting forward. They were despondent, thinking that nothing was possible in their villages. On the third day, the Myrada staff took the group through the first three stages of appreciative inquiry. The process resulted in a complete change in the attitudes of the women. They returned to their villages and had started 120 self-help groups by June 2000. As a result, their state was the most successful of the three states involved in setting up self-help groups in the IFAD - Northeast Region Community Resource Management Project.

UNDP training in Myanmar.
As part of the UNDP's Community Development for Remote Townships project, Myrada staff delivered training to 85 UNDP staff during an intensive week-long program. The UNDP people were working in the challenging northern border area in the states of Chin, Kachin and Rakhine. On the last day the Myrada trainers showed the appreciative inquiry video to the participants. The response was very encouraging. In a post-training evaluation, appreciative inquiry ranked as the most significant learning of the entire week-long program. The UNDP staff felt the approach would be useful in building visions and implementing projects, as well as in their personal lives. Myrada has since received several requests for additional support in appreciative inquiry.

6. Next steps: Objectives for the period July-December, 2000
During the next six months the project activities will include continued training and fieldwork with Myrada and partner organization staff. The project team will also begin to develop a field-guide to applying appreciative inquiry, convene a workshop to develop a measurement and evaluation system that is consistent with the intent of appreciative inquiry (focusing on the positive) and design an external evaluation of the project.

Appreciative inquiry training.
During the next six months the project will continue to hold training programs for staff from Myrada and its partner organizations in appreciative inquiry. The core team will support the application of appreciative inquiry in the field with various community groups. Case studies will be collected for inclusion in the field-guide. An attempt will be made to train all Myrada staff from drivers and cooks to senior staff.

Embedding measurement and evaluation within appreciative inquiry.
During the third six-month period the project team will work with a measurement and evaluation specialist from German Agro-Action to develop a monitoring and evaluation approach that is consistent with appreciative inquiry, yet supplies objective information. At issue here is whether a standard monitoring and evaluation method that has been purposefully designed to be neutral can be combined with an appreciative approach that intends to emphasize only positive achievements and actions. If an evaluation brings to light a group's failure to meet its objectives as set out in its action plans and provocative propositions, the energy and enthusiasm created in the discovery, dream and design stages of appreciative inquiry might be dissipated. As this energy for change is one of the very immediate and unique benefits of appreciative inquiry, steps should be taken to preserve and nurture it wherever possible. The measurement and evaluation approach that is developed will be field-tested during the final six months of the project.

Design external project evaluation.
In order to objectively assess the degree to which the project achieved its stated goals, IISD and Myrada will design an external evaluation. The evaluation will be conducted by someone who is very familiar with participatory techniques, project evaluations and local conditions. To assess the impact of the project the evaluator will review case studies, attend training and fieldwork sessions, and interview project staff, partner organizations and community members. The terms of reference for the evaluator will be developed in December and the evaluation will take place in May 2001.

Field-guide on appreciative inquiry.
During the first year of the project, the core team recognized the need for a field guide on appreciative inquiry that explains best approaches and contains case studies. During the third six-month period the core team will begin compiling information for inclusion in this field-guide. A workshop will be held in December to design the guide. It is likely to contain a section on training trainers and extension staff as well as a section on field techniques and case studies. The guide will complement the video, providing new practitioners of appreciative inquiry an opportunity to learn from other successful applications of the approach. The project team considers the field-guide to be one of the most important outputs of the project. As such, considerable effort will be put into its production.

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