The Nyeri Workshop

The Nyeri workshop on “Bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative methods” brought together researchers interested in using the tools and approaches of PRA to conduct rigourous research.

Participants were encouraged to bring their own experiences and examples, and to apply the methodologies discussed to their own, ongoing research. It is also hoped that participants will continue to share their experiences in this field with each other, and to lend their expertise to the evolution of the Working Paper on participatory research that was first presented in Nyeri.

A Nyeri group listserv will also be starting shortly to facilitate discussion. Please e-mail Steve Franzel ( s.franzel@cgiar.org) for more information.

This site is a starting point for such further collaboration. As materials related to the conference become available, they will be posted online on this page. The original Working Paper can be downloaded from the link at the right. Archives of the Nyeri Group listserv discussions will also be posted here as they occur.

Workshop background

There are numerous and well-documented reasons for using participatory methods in rural development activities. These often require intense involvement of facilitators in communities, necessarily limiting the number of farmers and communities reached by a project. If the objective is empowerment and improving livelihoods in those particular communities then such involvement is acceptable. The ‘research’ involves the participants - individuals and communities - discovering solutions to their problems.

However, in many cases the facilitators will also have broader research objectives. Many projects have the joint aims of (1) facilitating change among the immediate project beneficiaries, and (2) providing evidence for efficient targeting and organization of more wide-scale activities. This second aim requires systematic collection of information on technological, institutional or policy changes and the processes that lead to them. This is a typical researcher agenda. However it has to be carried out in the context of a participatory project. Some effort has to be made to ensure that the information collected is relevant beyond the immediate communities in which it is collected. Without this, the result may be case studies, the applicability or generalisability of which is completely unknown.