This issue captures the diversity of Immersion opportunities for development professionals - spending a period of time living with and learning from a poor family. The common denominator is a concern to bring immersion participants face to face with ordinary people, giving them the chance to test old assumptions, develop new perspectives, and strengthen their commitment to the challenge of poverty eradication.

The Participatory Mapping for Change CD-ROM is an exciting multi-lingual project in the Participatory Learning and Action series. Co-published by IIED and CTA, the CD-ROM contains PDF versions of the theme articles from Participatory Learning and Action 54: Mapping for change: practice, technologies and communication. This multlingual CD Rom contains PDF versions in Arabic, Bangla, Chinese (traditional and simplified), English, French, Hindi, Persian-Dari, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili and Tamil of edited papers presented at the "Mapping for Change: International Conference of Spatial Information Management and Communication" held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 7-10 September 2005, which were published in Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) 54.

Contains a range of articles of general interest to participatory practitioners. Themes covered include: sequential steps for empowering rural communities for local development; participatory monitoring and evaluation in Bangalore; participatory approaches to public accountability in Ghana; using participatory video for monitoring and evaluation; participatory systemisation; wholistic worldview analysis; and children's participation in governance and decision making. Tips for trainers describes the action learning of capacity building in systemisation methodologies. The issue also includes the regular In Touch section.

This special edition of Participatory Learning and Action is a collation of lessons and innovative tools that have been developed by the facilitators of community-based natural resource management programmes in southern Africa and is also an important resource for facilitators in other regions. These tools have been broadly divided into two categories: facilitators tools and management tools. Tools in the former category range from Theatre for Africa's role in policy development to the CAMPFIRE Game for improving training in financial management. The managment tools have been developed to allow communities to manage wildlife in modern market economies. Examples of these tools range from the event book system developed in Namibia to the quota setting methodologies developed in Zimbabwe.

This special issue of Participatory Learning and Action captures the experiences of Southern civil society organisations (CSOs) which are engaging in the monitoring, evaluation and implementation of poverty reduction strategy (PRS) processes. In many countries CSO engagement in this particular stage of these strategies is just beginning. There has been much reflection on engagement by CSOs in the formulation of PRSs, but much less written about how they are being monitored and implemented. With respect to monitoring and evaluation, this issue explores how CSOs are working towards the articulation and realisation of poor people’s rights and the accountability of governments and other powerful actors towards them. Authors for this issue came together at a workshop in July 2004 in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss the contributions and to share their experiences in PRS processes.

This general issue allows for articles on a wider range of themes, contexts, and countries. It starts with a ‘mini-theme’: the generation of numbers through participatory approaches - and in particular aggregrating and using those numbers beyond the community level, an area in which there is growing interest. These articles take a critical look at issues such as:· How to find ways of standardising the data;·Aggregating the numbers for higher level planning and policy purposes;·The question of ethics: whether using participatory methods in this way is necessarily ‘extractive’ or whether there can be something in it for communities;·Examines the scope for empowerment; and,·How to maintain quality, both methodologically and ethically?Other articles discuss issues such as:taking stock of PRA and its current status;·what good PRA practice is what PRA is really about or for;·the role of trainers and practitioners; and,·critical reflections from practice.PLA Notes 47 also includes the usually In Touch resources section, e-participation website reviews, and Tips for Trainers.

Many of the more progressive recent developments in animal health have been focused around participatory epidemiology. For many, livestock is a source of food and income generation, and problems surrounding lack of access to veterinary services, drugs, and information can severely impact upon the quality of the animal healthcare available.

The theme for this issue, Deliberative Democracy and Citizen Empowerment, focuses on how to engage "the public" in policy formulation. Currently, there is increasing interest from Civil Society in ideas regarding good governance, deepening democracy and citizen empowerment, particularly how to bring the public or "lay" perspectives into areas where traditionally the public has had little or no involvement. This issue draws togther some ket thinking around public participation, using a range of techniques know as "Deliberative and Inclusionary Processes" (DIPs), including mechanisms like Citizen Juries, Citizen Conferences and the like. The majority of experiences with these prcesses has been in the North, altghou incresingly these are being adopted and adapted to the South. This issue is guest edited by Michel Pimbert and Tom Wakefield. This issue also contains the results from the 1999 Readership Survey.

PLA Notes is the world's leading informal journal on participatory approaches and methods reaching over 10,000 readers in 47 countries. Since its first issue in 1988, it has provided a forum for those engaged in participatory work - community workers, activists, and researchers - to share their experiences and learning with others, providing a genuine 'voice from the field'. This general issue covers a variety of themes, from capacity building and social mapping, to transforming participatory facilitation.

This theme issue of PLA Notes looks at ‘analysis’: the tricky process of ‘making sense’ of the information derived from participatory approaches. While it is easy to generate much interesting and unusual information through participatory processes, it is often very difficult to make sense of the mountain of data with which we are left. Where does participation in analysis begin and end? When does it happen, and how and by whom is learning represented? How can serious analysis ensure that local people learn about the value of their lives and gain the confidence to represent their own choices? Articles in this issue of PLA Notes discuss what happens when data is ‘collected’, discussed, summarised and shared, when priorities are made, and action points are agreed. It includes examples from Uganda, Peru, UK, Malawi, India, Brazil and El Salvador. The articles examine who is involved in analysing information at different stages in a participatory process and discuss how critical reflection can, and should, become part of any participatory process.

Articles Include: We live on prayers: the use of video in community development. Walking a tightrope: using PRA in a conflict situation around Waza National Park, Cameroon. Project benefit-matrix impact from the Maldives - a method for participatory evaluation. Complementary methods to understand land-use changes: an example from the Ethiopian Rift Valley. ~Special Issue: Community Water Management. ~Strengthening community water management. ~An introduction to Participatory Action Development (PAD).~ A detailed look at the PAD approach. ~Aguacatán in Guatemala: how seven communities joined hands. ~Women’s involvement: a switch in thinking, Hoto, Pakistan.~ Convincing people to pay for water: Nkouondja in Cameroon. ~Experimenting to solve water management problems: Lele community in Nepal. ~Sparkling ideas in Campoalegre, Colombia: managing the watershed to sustain the water supply. ~What stimulating and committed leadership can achieve: Nkouondja, Cameroon. ~Pakora in Pakistan: moving towards democratic management. ~Participatory evaluation of a community water project in Tanzania.~ Lessons learned by communities and the PAR team – Nepal. ~PAR outcomes in Nyakerato in Kenya.

Articles this issue: From terms of reference to participatory learning: using an evaluation’s creative space. ~Experience with PRA training and hands-on implementation: results of an ex-post study of PRA training courses. ~Tackling difficult issues: lessons from research in Ecuador. ~Force field analysis: applications in PRA.~ ‘Say it with pictures’: an account of a self-assessment process in a diary sector support project in Tanzania. ~Social network analysis, social capital and their policy implications. ~Can PRA methods be used to collect economic data? A non-timber forest product case study from Zimbabwe. ~Snapshots from ‘Deepening our Understanding and Practice: a conference on participatory development and beyond’.~Tips for Trainers. In Touch, RCPLA Pages.

This Discussion Paper reviews participatory approaches to monitoring environmental change. It draws on published literature, interviews with practitioners, and the practical experiences of a research project on participatory monitoring of sustainable agriculture in Brazil. This project seeks to develop a viable and relevant monitoring process with farmers, farmers unions, and NGOs to help assess the social and environmental impacts of their efforts in developing more sustainable forms of agriculture. ~The term ‘participatory monitoring’ is used to describe a wide range of practices. Here we use it to describe monitoring approaches that develop partnerships of multiple stakeholders for efficient, effective and socially inclusive monitoring. The drive for accountability and the need for more information to improve planning processes have given great impetus to participatory monitoring. This publication provides comprehensive practical examples that can be drawn upon to support or refute the claims regarding Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation.

1. Analysing communication in participatory appraisal - Katrin Linzer and Robert Kowalski. ~2. Using PRA in organisational self-assessment - Michael Edwards. ~3. Involving resource-poor farmers in agricultural extension - S.K.Pradhan. ~4. How big should on-farm trials be and how many plots should be measured? - William J.Fielding and Janet Riley. ~Special Issue: Performance and Participation: ~5. An Overview - Andrea Cornwall. ~6. Theatre for development, participatory monitoring and cultural feedback - Alex Mavrocordatos. ~7. Drama as a discussion starter in research and education - Korrie de Koning. ~8. Theatre and video for development - Frances Harding. ~9. A day in the village with ‘positive people’ or ‘neno joma nigi kute ayaki’ - Lenin. Ogolla. ~10. Rehearsing for reality: using role-play to transform attitudes and behaviour - Rose Mbowa. ~11. From acting to taking action: forum and legislative theatre - Adrian Jackson. ~12. ‘Asylum’ - theatre for development in Oxford - Alison ...

1. Reflections from farmer-led trials in India - T. Barik, R.N. Mohapatra, P.L. Pradhan and B.P. Mohapatra. ~2. Farmers’ on-farm participatory research: experiences in Ethiopia - Ejigu Jonfa. ~3. And what about women? promoting gender balanced participation - Wenny W. S. Ho. ~4. Child health calendars: a type of case history - Eleanor McGee. ~5. Assessing perceptions of `basic minimum needs’: a modified Venn diagram technique - Carin Duchscherer and Duke Duchscherer. ~Special issue: Participation, Policy and Institutionalisation: ~6. An Overview - John Thompson, Jo Abbot and Fiona Hinchcliffe. ~7. The use of RRA to inform policy: Observations from Madagascar and Guinea - Karen Schoonmaker Freudenberger. ~8. `The one who rides the donkey does not know the ground is hot’ - Tony Dogbe. ~9. Village voices challenging wetland management policies - Michel Pimbert, Biksham Gujja and Meera Shah. ~10. Linking PRA to policy: the Conflict Analysis Framework - M. Warner, C. Robb, A. Mackay, and M ...

Visual literacy is a characteristic all human beings inherently possess. Yet because of our cultural and social differences, we interpret visual symbols and representations, such as drawings, pictures, and artefacts, in different ways. How and why people use visual images to represent complex ideas and processes is the focus of How People use Pictures. It is the first comprehensive review of the literature on visual literacy in over a decade, and offers new insights into this complicated issue. Written for practitioners interested in communicating with local people using pictures and visual symbols and for researchers interested in gaining a deeper appreciation of the 'language of the visual' , this book provides detailed annotations of over 100 key references, as well as an extensive list of useful institutions and resources. ~This book was reprinted in 1997 and contains a new forward written by Bob Linney, outlining recent developments in visual literacy