Global Study Update

August 2004

As part of an agreement with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), a team from the Global Study on Participation carried out a field mission in southeastern Liberia in order to test the Practitioners’ Handbook on Participation.

This field mission had two objectives: firstly testing the Practitioners’ Handbook on Participation in the field and, secondly to carry out a capacity building exercise for DRC staff and other agents operating in the region, including representatives from local administration and a local NGO. Fourteen participants attended a five-day workshop which included formal training on designing and implementing a participatory strategy and the use of participatory tools, followed by practical application of these skills in two villages. Over the course of this field mission, the team identified various aspects of the Practitioners’ Handbook on Participation that could benefit from revision before the final publication, such as enhancing tool descriptions with real examples and giving practical advice in the section on communication.

         

April - May 2004

The first two piloting exercises of the handbook produced by the Groupe URD / Global Study team are ongoing in Afghanistan and Eastern DRC. 

              

November - Decemcer 2003, February 2004

A team of 4 researchers has carried out the last case study for ALNAP’s Global Study on Participation: the case of Guinea, which illustrates the issue of participation in refugee camp situations. Guinea has been welcoming refugees since 1991, and now hosts the largest number of refugees (from Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast) in the sub-region. The team met humanitarian aid workers in Conakry (the capital city) and in Kissidougou and N'Zérékoré (the towns where aid workers working the refugee camps are based). Visits in all the camps of Guinée forestière were carried out. Visits were also made to villages in the vicinity of the camps. Results were fed back to aid workers at the field level during meetings. Part of the study was carried out in Sierra Leone, both among Sierra Leonese refugees that have been repatriated and with Liberian refugees living in camps. The monograph is currently being written.

           

October 2003

The Phase 1 was officially completed with the publication of five Country Monographs and the first version of the Handbook. The ALNAP Boston Biannual saw launch of  Phase 2.

A new working group has been set up, with Maurice Herson from OXFAM, taking over chairmanship from André Griegspoor. OXFAM took also the position of "lead agency" according the new mechanisms of working groups decided during April 2003 ALNAP Biannual. Groupe URD will continue to be the implementing agency of the Global Study.

          

May-June 2003

Since the last ALNAP biannual meeting (London, May 1st 2003), where three published monographs (Sri Lanka, Angola, Colombia) and the first draft of the Practitioner Handbook were presented to the ALNAP members, progress in the Global Study outputs has continued.

The Afghanistan monograph is now published, and, like the others, is available in printed copy from the ALNAP secretariat or in PDF format on this website.  The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo monograph is being reviewed by the Global Study Steering Group and will soon be available.

As the first phase of the Global Study is coming to an end, the Global Study team is actively working on an improved final draft of the Practitioner Handbook, which will be published by the end of July, while work continues on the Overview Book.  The possibilities of carrying out a second phase of the Global Study, in particular to pilot the handbook in the field, are being explored.

Since the completion of the Angola Case Study mission, in November 2002, the Global Study Steering Group and Groupe URD team have been actively working on the capitalisation and analysis of the field work, on the elaboration of the Practitioner Handbook, as well as on desk-based studies that will contribute to the Global Study Overview Book on Participation in Humanitarian Action.

Case Studies 

Four of the five case study monographs have been finalised, three of which are already available in printed copy from the ALNAP Secretariat and on the Global Study website (Sri Lanka, Angola, Colombia).  The Afghanistan monograph should also be available in May.

A second mission was carried out in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, from the 11th to the 28th April 2003, to complement the findings of the first mission (July/August 2002).  The research team included Groupe URD researchers and the local consultants that had been involved in the first mission.  Field work was carried out in the same sites than the first mission, i.e. Goma and Bukavu, but a deterioration of security conditions prevented the team from returning to Uvira.  This did not seriously affect, however, the quality of the results.

The final monograph on Eastern DRC will be available soon.

Literature Reviews

A comprehensive review of the Anglophone literature on participation had been carried out by Pierson Ntata in 2002.  A review of the francophone literature on participation in development and humanitarian aid has been completed in March 2003, as well as a review of the Spanish literature and of case studies on participation in Latin America  These three papers give very diverse and enlightening perspectives on the issue of participation in humanitarian action.  They are available on this website.

The Practitioner Handbook

A draft version of the Practitioner Handbook has been elaborated by the Groupe URD Global Study research team.  It is currently being reviewed by the Global Study Steering Group.  The possibilities of piloting a first version of the handbook, before it is finalised, updated and disseminated, are being explored.

Workshops and meetings

A mission by Groupe URD in Afghanistan, in January/February, was the occasion to organise a workshop in Kabul, where the intermediary results of the Global Study were presented to Afghan and expatriate aid workers.  The team was met with great interest from participants, which confirmed the relevance and value of the Global Study outputs.  This interest was also confirmed during the second mission to Eastern DRC and Colombia.

The Global Study process is made possible by the active support the Global Study’s Steering Committee provides to Groupe URD.  Rich interactions, exchanges, and feedback processes are kept lively through regular meetings.  Groupe URD and the Steering Committee have met twice since the beginning of the year: February 20th and April 11th 2003.  An update on the Study and the present publications will be presented at the next ALNAP biannual (May 1st 2003, London).

From mid-September to mid-November 2002 : MISSION IN ANGOLA

The Case study in Angola is now completed,  and a mission report can be obtained here. The Project Director visited Luanda from the 5th to the 11th of November and received a lengthy briefing from the team leader, as well as NGO and UN staff in Luanda. The Case Study team leader and the Project Director participated in a very interesting and timely conference co-organised by an Angolan NGO (ADRA) and an international one (German Agro Action), where the ideas arising from the Global Study were discussed both in plenary sessions and in workshops. A summary of the results of the study will be soon available on this web site.

             

13-14th September 2002 : SECOND GLOBAL STUDY WORKSHOP

This workshop took place at Groupe URD headquarters (La Fontaine des Marins, 26170 Plaisians, Drôme Provençale, South of France). The teams from Colombia, D.R.Congo and Afghanistan just recently returned from the field, and this was the occasion for each team to give feedback on their mission, to put together initial findings, and to specify a common method for the writing-up of the case study monographs. This represented an excellent occation to brief the just recruited Angola Team Leader.

              

From August to September 2002 : MISSION IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (DRC)

The research in Eastern DRC is now completed. The team leader recruited through a Canadian groupe, ALTERNATIVES, a secondee from USAID and two national consultants have been able to cover the expected area comprising the war affected zones, the areas which suffered from the Nyaracongo eruption and specific locations which were badly hit by river flash floods/land slides. Zones visited included Uvira, Bukavu and Goma regions. This area has gone through several dramatic events since the beginning of the 90’s and has been the theatre of many of the most interesting humanitarian operations. It is thus expected that very interesting findings  will come out of this case study. The Global Study Project Director joined the team from 31/8 to 6/9/2002. Additional field visits, meetings with international and national NGOs, interviews with beneficiaries took place during this visit. A feed back session was organised within the framework of local research networks which are active in the region.

          

From July 20th to August 24th  2002 : MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN

While Afghanistan was becoming the centre of worldwide political and humanitarian efforts, two devastating earthquakes affected the area of Nahrin, Baghlan Province. A natural disaster in a complex post-emergency situation is always an interesting event as examples of both good and bad practice in aid can often be observed in a very contrasted manner. As Groupe URD was already planning a mission in this area, it was seen as a good opportunity to construct a specific case study on the example of Baghlan province and the area affected by earthquakes in March and April 2002. This example, added at a late stage to the Global Study, turned out to be the basis for a very interesting monograph on a sudden onset/natural disaster.

A note about this mission is available on the Afghanistan case study page of this web site.

          

From June to September 2002: MISSION IN COLOMBIA

In June, a first exploratory mission took place in Colombia in order to prepare the field research on the consultative and participatory mechanisms in humanitarian programmes in Colombia. The field research was finalised in several regions: Magdalena Medio, Bogota and El Choco. Carried out by a team of four researchers (a team leader from Groupe URD, one of the two Global Study research assistants and two Colombian anthropologists), the mission concluded the field work  by a feed-back workshop on September 10th, attended by many local and international actors. A country monograph will be produced at a later stage. Numerous NGOs, UN agencies, CBOs and many groups from the Colombian civil society were involved in the research and contributed to shed light on the complexity, advantages, limits and dangers of consultative and participatory processes.

      

12-13th July 2002 : FIRST GLOBAL STUDY WORKSHOP

Place: Groupe URD headquarters, in the Drôme (South of France)

This first workshop brought together various members of ALNAP’s Steering Committee and the Global Study Steering Group, members of the research teams for the missions in Colombia, D.R. Congo, Afghanistan, and the next rapid-onset natural disaster, and the core study team (Project director and 2 research assistants).  This was the occasion to meet, as well as to agree on the methods of work for the set of studies.  The issues discussed included:

-         Internal and external communication strategy.

-         Feedback on the Sri Lanka mission and preliminary visits to DRC, Colombia and Afghanistan, as well as on studies carried out on participation in Sudan, Malawi and India by Pierson Ntata.

-         Brainstorming and discussion on the concepts and issues central to the study; a common methodology was devised for all teams, to ensure that the approach and information collected in each case study is coherent with the others.

-         Preparation of the Colombia and Congo missions and of a global plan of action.