Q1

What methods are employed to conduct situation analysis of the village?

After developing initial rapport, PFA is expected to perform series of exercises to understand the situation of the village in terms of its natural resource endowments, institutional base and current problems and problem effected groups in the village. It is important to make this process participatory, transparent and deep. Several tools and methods are already in place for this purpose.

• PRA exercises, transact walks, Grama Sabha are most common methods employed to analyze situation of the village and its resources.
  It is interesting to note that the role of Grama Panchayati in situation analysis is minimum (only 13%). In several cases, the interactions with Grama Panchayati ended with signing an MOU.

Q2

On what themes, PRA was conducted?

After developing initial rapport, PFA is expected to perform series of exercises to understand the situation of the village in terms of its natural resource endowments, institutional base and current problems and problem effected groups in the village. It is important to make this process participatory, transparent and deep. Several tools and methods are already in place for this purpose.

• PRA on resource and social mapping are the most common tools used.

• There is no common minimum set of tools for situation analysis. They are not uniformly applied in all villages.

• PRA tools such as well being ranking, tree matrix, livelihoods profiles, agriculture and productivity, which are relevant to ARPLP are not uniformly used in all watersheds.

• Interestingly only in cases (NGO PIAs), PRA was conducted on Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) and subsequently these inputs are used in planning too.

• In terms of number of tools used, APRLP PIAs perform better than Non APRLP PIAs. Both categories of PIAs perform equally in Non APRLP villages. The influence of APRLP in expanding the scope of situation analysis is evident from this point.

Q3

Whether issues related to women were discussed (workloads, etc) or not?

It is recognized that women are marginalized in watershed development process, though they have considerable dependency on watershed resources and manage them. APRLP envisaged that issues related to women are discussed and integrated in the project from the initial stages of the project itself. In this process, women themselves take lead. Men in the village and PFA support women in this process.

• In 25% of watersheds, the issues related to women are not discussed at all.

• Remaining watersheds discussed the issues related to women. Though women played minimum role in the identification process, the major issues identified are - drinking water, livestock and fuel wood. These issues related to normal roles that women perform generally.

• Equal wages and other infrastructure related interventions (washing/ bathing places) are also discussed. It is interesting to note that these villages also ensured that these interventions are made by the watershed based institutions (if not with watershed projects).

• Health issues of women are identified in one watershed. But it is not clear whether any specific interventions are made in the project on this theme or not.

Q4

What important problems were identified during the initial phases?

After developing initial rapport, PFA is expected to perform series of exercises to understand the situation of the village in terms of its natural resource endowments, institutional base and current problems and problem effected groups in the village. It is important to make this process participatory, transparent and deep. Several tools and methods are already in place for this purpose.

• As facilitators, WDT (69%) and PIA (56%) are playing key role. Since MDT is functioning as PFA, the MDT is also playing this role.

• The role of farmers in problem identification is strong in 50% of cases. This indicates the focus on land development related themes as dominating paradigm of problem analysis.

• Domination of leadership of the village and institutions of the village is quite visible in the problem analysis - Village Leaders, Sarpanch and leaders of WC and VO is observed in reasonable number of watersheds (20 to 40%).

• It is important to note that women did not play any key role in this process. One should assume that VO and SHG represent women and their concerns (in 31% of watersheds). Their role is observed only in APRLP watersheds. In Non APRLP watersheds, the role of VO is nil.

Q5

Who played key role in identification of problems?

After developing initial rapport, PFA is expected to perform series of exercises to understand the situation of the village in terms of its natural resource endowments, institutional base and current problems and problem effected groups in the village. It is important to make this process participatory, transparent and deep. Several tools and methods are already in place for this purpose.

• Drinking water scarcity (81%), migration (63%), soil erosion and low productivity (56%), irrigation water scarcity (44%); fodder scarcity (31%), health of livestock (31%) are some of the top problems related to natural resources.

• Several social problems and infrastructure related problems are also addressed such as alcoholism, school drop outs, illiteracy and so on.

Q6

Who are most affected groups in the village, as a result of the problems in the village?

After developing initial rapport, PFA is expected to perform series of exercises to understand the situation of the village in terms of its natural resource endowments, institutional base and current problems and problem effected groups in the village. It is important to make this process participatory, transparent and deep. Several tools and methods are already in place for this purpose.

• The situation analysis identified most vulnerable groups in the village. It is important to recognize that there is no uniformity in application of tools as a result the identification of vulnerable groups could also be non uniform.

• In majority of the watersheds, women (50%) are identified as most affected communities.

• Farmers, Wage seekers and laborers are considered as most affected communities in 44% of watersheds.

• It is important to see whether all these vulnerable groups got access to project benefits or they remained only at this stage.