Nepal pva workshop report chitwan november 2k5 final

Participatory
Vulnerability Analysis
November 14-19, 2005
The Global Hotel
Bharatpur, Chitwan
Nepal

Emergency & Disaster Management Theme
ActionAid Nepal
Human Security & Governance Team
Kathmandu

Prepared By
Shyam Sundar Jnavaly
AAN CRC Bharatpur
Dhruba Raj Gautam
DPNet Nepal
Kathmandu

ActionAid Nepal
November 2005
Bharatpur, Chitwan

ACTIONAID Nepal
GPO Box 6257
Kathmandu
Nepal
Tel: 977 (1) 7736477, 4410929, 4419115
Fax: 977 (1) 4419718
E-mail: mail.nepal@actionaid.org

Copyright © ACTIONAID Nepal 2005

ACTIONAID Nepal reserves all rights of ownership of the original material in
this Report, but readers are free to make use of it for non-commercial purposes
in the course of development work. ACTIONAID Nepal asks, however, that
proper acknowledgement be given whenever the Report is so used, and that a
copy of any document prepared with the assistance of original material quoted
from this Report be sent to ACTIONAID Nepal, for inclusion in the
ACTIONAID Nepal resource centre.

Acronyms
CBDP : Community Based Disaster Prevention
CBO : Community Based Organization
CDO : Chief District Officer
DDC : District Development Committee
DIO : Divisional Irrigation Office
DOI : Department of Irrigation
E&DM : Emergency and Disaster Management
FGD : Focus Group Discussion
GO : Government Organization
HMG : His Majesty's Government
INGO : International Non Governmental Organization
KII : Key Informant Information
NGO : Non Governmental Organization
NPC : National Planning Commission
NRCS : Nepal Red Cross Society
UNDP : United Nations Development Program
VDC : Village Development Committee

Workshop Report on “Participatory Vulnerability Analysis” Page 1 of 82

Table of Content

1 The Context: Disaster and Vulnerability 1
1.1 Vulnerability in the Context of ActionAid International 2
1.2 Forms of Vulnerability 2
1.3 Linkages between Vulnerability with other Disciplines 2
2 Participatory Vulnerability Analysis 3
2.1 Core principles of PVA 3
2.2 PVA at the different levels 3
2.3 Role of PVA in the context of Action Aiders and its partners 4
3 PVA in the Context of Actionaid Nepal 5
3.1 A Historical Timeline 5
3.2 PVA Workshop in Nepal 5
3.3 Participation 6
3.4 Resources 6
3.5 Sampling/Selection 6
3.6 The Communities 6
3.7 Use of Secondary Data 6
3.8 Data and Data Management Information Dissemination 7
3.9 Participatory Tools and Techniques 7
3.10 Key Outputs from Data Analysis 8
3.11 Ties to Decision Making Process 9
3.12 Analysis from Field PVA presentations 9
3.12 Participant’s Feelings, after having a PVA training 10
Commitments
3.14 Outcome / Impact 10
4 Data to be documented 11


5 Issues Emerged while Analysing the Vulnerability 11
6 Institutionalizing PVA 12
7 Gaps and Challenges 12
8 Benefits of PVA 12
9 Learning and Sharing 13
10 The Way Forward 15
11 Summing up 15
Workshop Proceedings 17
Annexes 54


Workshop Report on Participatory Vulnerability Analysis
(November 14-19, 2005)
Hotel Global, Bharatpur, Chitwan

1. The Context: Disaster and Vulnerability
Disaster is an unexpected phenomenon. Due to frequent floods and chronic landslides,
Nepal is regarded a highly disaster prone area. Both floods and landslides damage the
infrastructures, erodes the productive agriculture land and cause to take away thousand of
lives and livestock. There are various reasons behind the heavy disasters. Development
activities haphazardly implemented without maintaining the norms (road, buildings),
deforestation, adaptation of the traditional practices of making khoriya for cultivation, and
encroachments of flood plains are some of the immediate reasons. Break of epidemic,
migration, starvation, deaths, beggary, suicide, disability and illness are the post disaster
syndromes. Disasters are responsible for significant economic loss, erosion in social and
financial capitals, psychological dislocation and widespread physical injury and death.
Poor, children, elderly and disadvantaged people are more vulnerable to the disaster and
post disaster effects because of their poor access to and control over the necessary
resources.

The vulnerability situation depends on family, community and hazards. Due to the socio-
economic condition and inadequate awareness among the people of the community, they
are not been able to face these hazards, so their condition is being vulnerable day by day.
As the hazard is increasing, vulnerability is also increasing due to the multiple effects of
the previous hazards. Further, it is also seen that there is a strong relation between hazards,
vulnerability and poverty. The poverty is found to be the major cause of vulnerability. And
the poverty is the consequence of hazards.

The vulnerability is the cause of poor unity and network of the disaster victims, ineffective
mitigation measures during disaster, poor capacity of community to fight against the
disaster, inadequate preparedness and mitigation plans on time. In order to cope with
vulnerability, advance planning and preparation is needed and capacity of the people
should be increased to mobilize internal as well as external resources. Increase leadership
quality, provide vocational skills and techniques to seek the alternative income source are
equally important. Those communities which have capacity to analysis their vulnerability
and its underlying causes can manage disaster more easily.

The ways of minimizing the vulnerability are multifarious. It has to be dealt with both from
social/institutional and technical perspectives. Building the capacity of local communities
is the foremost step to deal with the implication of disaster. For this, community
themselves have to assess their capacities to deal with the extent of vulnerability.

1.1 Vulnerability in the Context of ActionAid International
Vulnerability is considered to be the main linking factor between emergencies and long
term development work. The emergencies strategy of ActionAid has also emphasised on


analysing vulnerabilities in long-term work and using this analysis in building local
resilience, readiness and long term recovery.

1.2 Forms of Vulnerability
There are many forms of vulnerability. They are: poverty and vulnerability, needs and
vulnerability, deprivation and vulnerability and disadvantage and vulnerability.

Poverty and vulnerability: Poverty and vulnerability are strongly linked and mutually re-
enforcing and these are brought about by the same process. All poor are vulnerable and
most of the vulnerable are poor. Poverty is not the only factor, which leads to vulnerability;
there can be other factors like geographical location, communal conflict, etc.

Needs and vulnerability: Vulnerability is not just connoted with needs but is broader than
that. Needs are the outer symptoms while vulnerability remains hidden and strikes back.
People who cannot meet their basic needs are more vulnerable than others. During a
disaster, the well-off recover much more quickly than those who are struggling to meet
their basic needs.

Deprivation and vulnerability: Any kind of deprivation i.e. deprivation of information,
resources, or services generates vulnerability.

Disadvantage and vulnerability: It involves the access and control of resources.
Disadvantaged status reinforces the vulnerability.

All the above can be regarded as conditions of exposure to vulnerability. It affects people/
groups of people everywhere by different magnitude and categories. It also depends on the
context, which varies from one place to another. Among many, the major dimensions of
vulnerability are physical, social, cultural, gender, generational, economic, and political.
Vulnerability can be formulated as follows.

Vulnerability = Hazard/Capacities, or
Risk x Capacities/Hazard

1.3 Linkages between Vulnerability with Other Disciplines
Vulnerability can be considered to have strong linkages between emergencies and long
term development work. The emergency strategy of ActionAid International also
emphasises the analysis of vulnerabilities to promote long-term development work. PVA is
a systematic analytic process which can develop and build local capacities to understand
their situations of vulnerabilities. It is also useful in developing local communities'
resilience, strengthening their capacities for prevention and mitigation work. PVA
promotes their ability to overcome and reduce the impact of vulnerabilities and also
promote long term recovery. It is therefore important to view vulnerability analysis as a
process with strong linkages into many thematic areas within the work of ActionAid
International. These themes focus on enhancing, the rights of women and girls, promoting
good governance, food security, education, preventing HIV/AIDS, conflicts and


emergencies, and engaging in policy influencing and advocacy work in favour of the poor
and disadvantaged.

2. Participatory Vulnerability Analysis
Understanding the degree of capacity of the community for reducing their vulnerability is a
fundamental principle of the PVA. Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (PVA) is a
systematic process that empowers communities to understand their own situation of
vulnerabilities and take active measures. At the core of PVA lies the local knowledge and
capacities of the people to articulate, identify and develop plans for their situations of
vulnerabilities.

It involves communities and other stakeholders in an in-depth examination of their
vulnerability, and at the same time empowers or motivates them to take appropriate actions.
The overall aim of PVA is to link disaster preparedness and response to long-term
development.

PVA is a qualitative way of analyzing vulnerability, which involves participation of
vulnerable people themselves. The analysis helps us to understand vulnerability, its root
causes and most vulnerable groups, and agree on actions by, with and to people to reduce
their vulnerability. By analysis, we mean the process of breaking down something into
component parts, which can then be addressed systematically. PVA has its own principles,
which are outlined below.

2.1 Core Principles of PVA
The core principles of PVA are:
• PVA acts as an active agency that poor people can and involve in finding the solutions
to the problems they face.
• It is not an end in itself; it should result in action and change for the better.
• The sources of vulnerability and solutions to vulnerability are located or controlled
outside the community, so it needs a multi-level process.
• It is based on ActionAid’s rights based approach.

2.2 PVA at the Different Levels
Community level: At the community level analysis, local facilitators will help the
community to analyse their vulnerabilities in the meetings and discussion sessions. The
participatory and Reflect approaches will be used to incorporate community’s perception of
their vulnerabilities. But at the same time, local facilitators will feed in some issues
extracted from the other levels of analysis.

District/Project level: At the district/project level analysis, community representatives will
involve other stakeholders and will translate the issues into the local level advocacy and
lobbying. The regional/ country and international level of analysis will extract the ideas &
issues from the community and district level analysis to feed into the policy and advocacy
work. Studies on specific issues identified by the analysis will be conducted and learning
will be promoted by workshops, reports and exchange visits.


Regional/Country Level: At this stage, studies on selected issues will be made and major
issues and outcome of the studies will be disseminated through national level advocacy and
lobbying. In doing so, exchange visits and monitoring as well as national level workshops
are beneficial.

International Level: At this stage, coordination and documentation activities will be
implemented in the full swing. Other activities like technical support from outside like in
policy and advocacy work. International workshops and interactions are also useful to
exchange the knowledge and experiences.

2.3 Role of PVA in the Context of Action Aiders and its Partners
PVA has its place in the promotion and attainment of the above. For instance, working in
poverty reduction will require PVA.
• The attainment of livelihoods and reduction of vulnerability to food insecurity, poor
health, management and maintenance of community natural resources to reduce
environmental degradation.
• Gender issues, including various forms of marginalization, social exclusion and
deprivation of the rights of poor and vulnerable groups within the communities,-Dalits
issues, the untouchables, including people considered as 'squatters' and street children.
• Utilization in searching of opportunities for change in status quo of the poor and
marginalized including the promotion of long-term development and focus on rights
based approaches to development. PVA – can examine root causes of poverty,
marginalization and exclusion the issues related to power dynamics and power
relationship.

PVA encourages enhanced awareness and sensitivity to poor and marginalized that are
often not present during meetings. These categories of people need to be heard. Often they
may not be visible or may remain silent and unheard because of the cultural and social
norms. Enhanced awareness of structural injustices and exclusion can enable us to utilize
PVA to unearth and examine in each context – the existing power and marginalisation
processes. Thus, PVA can serve as a process that reveals vulnerable and excluded groups in
the communities we serve and indicates ways in which these people are exposed to hazards,
risks and even disasters.

PVA utilizes various participatory techniques to probe and ask questions, engage
communities in a reflective process to provide answers to the following questions: Who
controls power? Who is excluded and made vulnerable by this power? Who has access to
livelihood resources and who does not? What are the root causes of people's
vulnerabilities?

PVA reveals those who are socially excluded. Social exclusion can be defined in terms of
caste system, gender disparities, ethnicity, status and various forms of disabilities. The
work on vulnerability was viewed in the light of "Fighting Poverty Together” and framed
within the context of AAI Global Strategy entitled "Rights to End Poverty", (R2EP) to be
implemented during 2005-2010. It is evident R2EP places the poor and marginalized,
particularly women and girls, at the core of AAN programming. It also calls for their active


agency including AAN partnership with CSOs to form networks and alliances to advocate
for pro-poor polices and ensure that duty bearers meet their obligations. Emphasis is on
RBA to promote equity and social justice.

3. PVA in the Context of Actionaid Nepal
3.1 A Historical Timeline
In the first time, PVA Dorset Report was received in 2002. Subsequently, in the following
year, in 2003, PVA Guide draft was received. A year later Actionaid shared this draft PVA
guidebook to its partner NGOs. This concept was applied in the first time by Friends
Services Council in 5 VDCs and 1 Municipality of Rupandehi District in June-September
2004 (Please refer annex for proceedings of the training cum workshop).

In June 2005, Actionaid Nepal staff participated in PVA workshop India to sharpen the
knowledge about the PVA and its associated issues. Then, PVA guide (Final copy) was
received/circulated. Finally, PVA Training cum workshop was organized in Chitwan,
Nepal in November 2005 to further sharpen the knowledge and understanding among AAN
and its partners about PVA.

Apart from these activities, community issues were identified organizing mass meetings at
most hazardous /vulnerable locations in Rupandehi, Chitwan and Makwanpur Districts of
Nepal under Safety Net Campaign. The outcome issues were presented at district level
involving all district line agencies to address the specific issues by the specific departments
of local governments. e. g. flood, wild animal, health, education, etc. The district level
issues were shared at national level involving related I/NGOs, National Planning
Commission, Government Departments and Ministers. In this way, the issues of
vulnerability were taken in to discussion to find the root causes of vulnerability and its
associated issues.

3.2 PVA Workshop in Nepal
The PVA training cum workshop was conducted in Chitwan District / Central Terai from
14-19 November 2005. The overall objectives and aims were two fold: first to familiarize
the PVA process to the AAN Staff, Partner NGOs, local stakeholders and the community
and; second, to enable the community to develop understanding of their situation of
vulnerability and to empower them to take forward the issue to claim the compensation and
mobilize them to engage in rights based advocacy for development and improvement of
safety nets.

The objectives of the workshop were to:
• generate a common consensus on plan for a research programme on vulnerability
analysis
• share what we know and don’t know about vulnerability
• learn and think about vulnerability and how this can be analysed effectively
• develop a network of people working on vulnerability & emergencies within ActionAid
in the different parts of world


3.3 Participation in the Workshop
In the workshop, varieties of people from different disciplines were involved.
• ActionAid Nepal staff and Partners (14) (includes Theme leaders for Education, Food
security, Dalit, Governance, Peace and Conflict, Urban Poverty, Education, Impact
Assessment, Program Officers, Coordinators)
• Representatives of other NGO/CBOs and Networks (9)
• Local Government representative (1)
• Community Volunteer/Activists (6)
• Disaster Victim/Vulnerable community members (12)

3.4 Human Resources
The following were the resources of AA Nepal to carry out the PVA Workshop.
• AA International Resource Person
• PVA Guide Book
• In-house Pool of Experts on Participatory Tools and Techniques
• Committed Human Resources
• Appropriate logistic management, and
• Media

3.5 Selection of Samples
These communities were selected as per the following criteria
• Proximity to the workshop venue (low security threats)
• New DI area of AAN, so needs planning…
• AAN’s engagement with Food Security and NRM issue in the area
• Felt need of Disaster preparedness works
• Community issue linked with PVA process

3.6 The Communities Selected
As a part of the workshop, the participants of the training visited two communities of
Nepal, viz: Meghauli and Divyanagar /Jagatpur of Chitwan, Nepal. Meghauli and
Divyanagar/Jagatpur VDCs of Chitwan District face heavy flood and landslides every year,
and lose land, livelihood, life and property. The area also falls under the buffer zone of the
Royal Chitwan National (Wildlife) Park, thus wild animals damage the standing crops as
well as kills people every year. Communities are not able to claim compensations for
damaged crops and life due to complex compensation policy of the government. They are
not able to argue with Army that guard at the National Park. Though there is provision of
investing the 50% income of the Park for the betterment of surrounding community, no
proper development activities were running due to poor local governance.

3.7 Use of Secondary Data
The secondary information that was used was drawn from the following sources.
• The existing secondary data from the Partner NGO and networks / DDC and VDC
profile.
• Document Mapping of previous project works.


3.8 Data and Data Management Information Dissemination
Primary data were generated from PVA and secondary data were used for probing. For this,
analysis of vulnerability situation was made through
• Prevalence/extent of vulnerability
• Coping ability and approaches of different people
• Analysis of present threats/vulnerabilities

After consultation and feed back from the participants and community, report was finalized
and disseminated. Nepali language was used for the report and it was also made available
for the community and CBOs for future reference.

3.9 Participatory Tools and Techniques
The following participatory tools and techniques were used for the purpose of primary data
collection.
• Transact Walk
• Focused Group Discussion
• Time Line
• Seasonal Calendar
• Social/Resource/Vulnerability
Mapping
• Mobility Mapping
• Venn diagram
• Well-being Ranking

A process of making vulnerability map

• REFLECT -
• Problem Tree
• Conflict Analysis – Power Analysis –
Force field Analysis
• Gender Analysis – Time Chart
• Stepping Stone - Counselling
• Livelihood Analysis/Cob-Web
• SWOT Analysis

A map showing clusters

3.10 Key Outputs from Data Analysis


After the analysis of primary data collection, the causes of vulnerability, their cause and
effects and prioritization were found. From the analysis of the data available from two
communities, the causes of vulnerability were identified as follows.
• Narayani and Rapti River
• Wild Animals
• Army (Guards of National Park)
• Multiple Affects of Hazards and Poor governance

From the detail field work, the major causes of physical vulnerability were found as:
• Presence of the settlement area, buildings, arable lands physical infrastructures and
necessary services in disaster prone areas.
• Lack of alternative livelihood resources.
• Inadequate access and control over the production of resources.
• Dependence on elites and well-off people.
• Inadequate foodstuffs.
• Inadequate necessary education, skills and capacity.
• Inadequate basic services such as education, health-related services, drinking water,
sanitation, roads, electricity, and communication facilities.
• Diseases and epidemics.

Similarly, the major causes of socio-economic vulnerability were recorded as:
• Weak family lineage structure.
• Inadequate leadership qualities.
• Unpractical decision-making process.
• Unequal access to legal and treatments services.
• Inadequate access to political services.
• Weak community based institutions.
• Orthodox thinking towards change and modernizations.
• Dependent with others, belief on fate and lack of unity and coordination.
• Inadequate enough knowledge about threats and risk.
• Inadequate enough resources for rehabilitation.
• Weak social harmony and cooperation.
• Gender and caste discrimination.
• No access to information.
• No preparedness plans and strategies.
• Erosion of agriculture land by flood
• Standing crop submerged for several days
• Collapse of thatched house and loss of lives of livestock and family members

Prioritisation of vulnerability was shared as follows:
• Poverty and poorness
• No sustainable means of resources to cope with livelihoods
• No unity and network of the disaster victims
• Not effective mitigation measures during disaster


• Poor capacity of community to fight against the disaster
• Lack of proper preparedness and mitigation plans on time
• No action to cope with vulnerability
• No sufficient advance planning and preparation
• Poor capacity of the people to mobilise internal resources
• Inability to manage the external resources to cope with the problems
• Extraction of stone, sand from the river. They are also causes for the disaster inviting
the vulnerability situation.
• Unavailability of the information about warning system and advance forecasting
• Absence of secure place to rehabilitate people and cattle.
• Absence of leadership quality; need to provide vocational skills and techniques to seek
the alternative income source.
• Non existence of management plan for temporary shelter in advance.

It was also found that, following actions were adopted by the communities to reduce the
vulnerabilities:
• Formation of a Pressure Groups at community/cluster level
• Delegation to Stakeholders to familiarize the situation of various forms of disasters
• Establishment of Flood Early Warning System on the basis of their local knowledge
• Organization of Interaction with Authorities for external resource mobilization
• Capacity building trainings to the communities to cope with disaster and vulnerability.

3.11 Ties to Decision Making Process
Key steps carried out to tie PVA with the initiatives of other agencies.
• Adopt the outcome findings of PVA workshop for Annual Plan and Budget of
DDC/VDC, AAN, NGOs
• Incorporate the findings / outcome of PVA workshop in District Disaster Management
Strategy of Chitwan District
• Incorporate the issues that are generated from PVA in AAN long term development
program

3.12 Analysis from Field PVA Presentations
From the presentation of both groups and issues and concerned raised by the participants in
the plenary session, it was inferred that:
• The vulnerability situation depends on family, community and hazards. Due to the
socio-economic condition and lack of awareness among the people of the community,
they are not been able to withstand these hazards, so there condition is being vulnerable
day by day. As the hazard is increasing, vulnerability is also increasing due to the
multiple effects of the previous hazards.
• Hazards related to vulnerability also depend on the availability of food. The
vulnerability is found more prevailing in the period of food scarcity than during the
period of availability of food. It is also seen that there is a strong relation between
hazards, vulnerability and poverty. The poverty is found to be the major cause of
vulnerability. And the poverty is the consequences of hazards.


• Those people who are vulnerable are not able to manage the resources by their own
after it occurs, i.e. they cannot face the disaster. Those whose livelihood is fluctuated
by the disaster cannot manage the disaster by their own efforts. Similarly, those people
do not fall under vulnerable category who can easily face the disaster or who are able to
rehabilitate by their own resources after disaster.

3.13 Participant’s Feelings, after having a PVA training
• Participants recognised that they did not know much about the idea of vulnerability and
its associated issues before coming to the workshop. Now they not only knew different
aspects of it but also developed a common understanding to perceive it.
• Work on PVA is important because of its scope for linking emergencies with long term
development work; its deep link with poverty and inter-relatedness with rights issues.
• PVA draws its mandate from Fighting Poverty Together by contributing for the core
themes of participation, rights and advocacy. For this, PVA should be participatory,
qualitative, empowering and capable of analysing responsibilities and capacities.
• No single definition of vulnerability captures all its dimensions, complexities and
applications. Similarly, no single model or generalisation can be applied to all the
places and contexts. Vulnerability analysis also includes stakeholders, capacities, rights
and responsibilities analysis.
• It is better if analysis is based on the community’s own agenda at the community level
with some input from the facilitators. In this way, community’s time will be spent to
pursue their own motives rather than to feed the organisation.
• Every analysis should be followed by action but there can be some cases where no
service delivery action is required.

3.14 Commitments from Various Stakeholders
Followings are the commitments from various stakeholders to carry out the PVA process in
the future.
• Community ready to form Action Groups
• Local NGO/CBOs come forward to raise the issue to District level
• AAN and (DI) Partner NGO ready to provide resources for capacity building and
advocacy
• DDC agrees to mediate the talk/interaction with stakeholders/Line agencies

3.15 Outcome / Impact
The outcome and impact generated from the workshop were as follows.
• Commitment by the DDC representatives to take the issue further in their annual plan.
• Local NGO/CBOs agree to facilitate the Advocacy process.
• Development of PVA Network in the Region
• Commitment to use PVA while selecting DA DI for AAN
• Use of PVA for community level annual plan budget formulation
• Use of PVA for PRRP – Monitoring, Impact and Evaluation


4. Data Documentation
The following are the key steps to be considered before making the PVA exercise in the
field.
• Who are the most vulnerable and were they involved in the analysis?
• What are they vulnerable to?
• What are the changes in vulnerabilities over time?
• What are the underlying causes of vulnerabilities?
• Unsafe conditions (e.g. flow of information, coping mechanisms, level of assets etc).
• Differential levels of vulnerability (geographical location, access and control over
resources, power, gender, economic etc).
• Underlying factors and trends (e.g. trade policies, land rights etc).
• What are the characteristics of the categories of vulnerable poor: improving, coping and
declining?
• What assets do they have access to and control?
• Why are they vulnerable now?
• Why will they be vulnerable in future?
• What strategies do they use to reduce vulnerability and cope?
• How are assets used and what assets are used?
• What strategies do they use during crisis?
• What are their long-term livelihood strategies?
• What aspects of vulnerabilities can be used as indicators in programme reviews and
impact assessments?

5. Issues Emerged while Analysing the Vulnerability
The participants identified the following issues related to vulnerability, while working with
two communities.
• Should the vulnerability analysis be one time or continuous process integrated within
existing work. In case, it is a one time activity, what should be the ideal timing of the
analysis?
• Adequate capacity/skills of analysis/facilitation of the local facilitators to conduct good
analysis, which provide different options.
• Balance between external and local knowledge/information. What and how much
information will be injected during analysis and what will be extracted?
• How to develop true participation and ownership of the vulnerability in the analysis.
• Analysis should adequately incorporate community’s perception of vulnerabilities.
• Should the analysis be necessarily followed by action in order to bring change? What
should be the balance between analysis and action?
• Application of vulnerability analysis in conflict situation.
• How vulnerability analysis can capture the complex and dynamic situation of
communities.
• Involvement of other actors/stakeholders i.e. government, other civil society
organisations, etc. in the vulnerability analysis.
• Linking the outcome of analysis to long-term development work (not only to
emergencies work).


• How policies, which are mostly designed outside the communities, affect
vulnerabilities of people (market forces, trends in trade etc).
• How vulnerability analysis can feed into the policy and advocacy.
• How to treat vulnerability as a product of development? Mostly developmental
initiatives are meant to decrease vulnerabilities but sometime they increase people’s
vulnerabilities.
• Should the capacity analysis be the part of vulnerability analysis as the poor people
have many capacities?
• How to develop linkages to different levels i.e. community, district, regional/national,
international, while doing causal analysis.
• Vulnerability analysis should include endowments and entitlements of the communities
along with the causes and underlying forces, which make people vulnerable.
• Should the analysis be necessarily followed by action in order to bring change? What
should be the balance between analysis and action?
• How to develop true participation and ownership of the most vulnerable in the analysis.
• How changes or progression of vulnerability can be monitored and recorded over time?
• Is it possible to predict about future vulnerabilities based on experience and action? If
so, what can be the indicators to make it predictive?
• Can vulnerability be used as an indicator in program reviews and impact assessments?
• How PVA can be linked to Fighting Poverty Together: Global strategy of AA.

6. Institutionalizing the PVA
• The need for AA Nepal and partners to chart the way forward by strengthening
networks for PVA, AAN needs to undertake PVA at District and community levels to
feed into National and International levels- i.e. Using PVA analysis (community,
district, country & international).
• Share and learn experiences – many of the trained participants in Nepal have committed
themselves to use PVA in future programme activities.

7. Gaps and Challenges
The following are the gaps and challenges recorded from the PVA exercise.
• PVA Timing – must suit for community
• Owning PVA – PVA not only Emergency’s Tools
• External facilitators need to be catalyst and local facilitators need to carry out the
process as an activist to mobilize community for addressing the root causes of
vulnerability & other findings
• Establishing linkages between emergencies and long term development work
• Generating expectations as problem increase
• Requirement of high level of commitments of Time and Resources – needs continued
follow-ups

8. Benefits of PVA
On the basis of analysis of the PVA process, following benefits are identified:


• PVA is central to not only emergencies work but also to policy, advocacy and long
term development issues. It involves the exploration of root causes of natural and man
made disasters as well as chronic states of vulnerabilities. It can definitely be linked in
rights based approach and advocacy.
• It influences policies related to communities’ vulnerability issues and location, income,
livelihood, services, gender, generation and other dimensions.
• The importance of vulnerability analysis should be highlighted at different levels of
policy work and advocacy work / the outcomes of analysis should feed into our on-
going work on these areas.

9. Learning and Sharing
The following issues were identified for learning and sharing purpose:

For community participation
• How to use PVA process to ensure community participation.
• Linkage of PVA to emergencies, reduction of vulnerabilities and long-term
development efforts
• Linkage of PVA to RBA works to aware rights, and to build the capacity to enhance
networking and advocacy work of NGOs/CBOs
• Emergence of PVA in rights and advocacy at all levels-local, national and international
• Working with the community in free time of community.
• Work as a facilitator
• Hurry in finishing the work rather than problem identification
• Unable to explore all issues of community
• It was realised to have matured people while visiting the community
• It is better to convey message 2 days earlier for more participation of people
• It was realised from the field work that PVA is also feasible apart from the disaster. The
linkage of RBA with PVA is beneficial with each aspects of human life. In this context,
the overall realization was as follows:
• Use appropriate tools in local context for PVA
• Facilitating organization should build the rapport with the communities before
PVA exercise
• PVA should be interlinked with scientific research to ensure reliability and
validity of the work
• PVA is a continuous process
• PVA enhances indigenous knowledge and its dissemination
• Root cause analysis and analysis of power dynamics is possible through PVA
• PVA awares communities on human rights persecutors
• PVA establishes macro-micro linkages

For PVA method/process
• Every analysis should be followed by action to bring change.
• Reflective, engaging and participatory approaches should be used to empower
communities.


• PVA should be a continuous process integrated with existing work of Actionaid
International.
• Efforts to be made to predict future vulnerabilities by combining experience and action
(for mitigation and prevention work, develop early warning systems/ mechanisms and
responses in place).
• Analysis of vulnerability at one level can be linked to other levels to promote long-term
development work.
• Capacity of local facilitators should also be developed for improved facilitation and
analysis of PVA initiatives, particularly familiarity and use various tool of social
analysis, e.g. PRA, gender analysis, conflict analysis, Reflect, Stepping Stones, Power
analysis and Assets mapping tools to undertake PVA.
• PVA uses participatory tools and we should examine ways to use other systems –
Scientific methods should use in social analysis to enrich analysis on vulnerability
mapping.

On the basis of collection of data, and analysis of information, it is learnt that:
• Most vulnerable to be involved in the analysis, it means involvement of stakeholders at
all levels in the analysis.
• Proper timing- recognizing that poor and vulnerable groups are constantly engaged in
‘bread and butter’ survival activities- for understanding farming calendar and ensuring
proper timing
• Developing a sense of ownership of analysis in the community.
• PVA process should gradually empower the community (active engagement of the poor
and disadvantaged).
• PVA should incorporate communities’ perception about vulnerabilities.
• There should be a balance of local and outsider's information/knowledge while doing
PVA (do not force our own agenda on the people).

In additions to above aspects, the other lessens learned from PVA are recorded as:
• PVA help to increase Community Participation: Most vulnerable to be involved in the
analysis, it means involvement of stakeholders at all levels in the analysis- community,
district, and national / international levels - engage in campaigns to influence policy
makers and duty bearers, advocate for pro-poor policies that work in favour of people
to reduce their vulnerabilities.
• PVA in the appropriate time: It was learnt that PVA should carry out at the
appropriate time of the community. It is because poor and vulnerable groups are
constantly engaged in "bread and butter" survival activities. The understanding of local
communities, farming calendar and ensuring proper timing of PVA to get maximum
participation meaningfully.
• Developing a sense of ownership: This is particularly important for people who are
often excluded and absence in decision making processes. The need for heighten
awareness of socially excluded groups such as the Dalits and others is important. They
need to be included in the discourse during PVA.
• Interface of local and outsider's information/knowledge: There would be a balance of
local and outsider's information/knowledge while doing PVA (it is not wise to force
outsiders agenda on the people).


• Empowerment of Local People: The PVA process lead to active agency and
empowerment of the community (active engagement of the poor and marginalized) in
developing deep understanding of their situation of vulnerability and what the root
causes of their conditions are. PVA tries to incorporate communities’ perception and
feelings about vulnerabilities, underlying cause and suitable coping strategies.

10. The Way Forward
On the basis of analysis, the following are some of the way forwards:
• We will create Matrix for Collating CP experiences and enhance mechanisms to share
information on best practices.
• Examine and outline of challenges and key achievement (including impact) on PVA (or
value added of PVA)
• Make concrete suggestions on areas for improvement on the PVA methodology- using
experiences on what has worked/not worked- provide suggestions on technical gaps and
agreement on how these will be filled etc.
• Input into the trainers guide based on the skills gap.
• Participatory/Reflect approaches will be used at the community level analysis and the
capacity of facilitators will be build before conducting analysis.
• Efforts will be made to integrate PVA into the existing policies/programmes.
• The need for AA Nepal and partners to chart the way forward by strengthening existing
networks for PVA.
• Undertake PVA at District levels to feed into National and International levels- i.e.
Using PVA analysis (community, district, country and international).
• Create opportunities for partners and those who have been exposed to participatory
vulnerability capacity analysis to use PVA, also, engage in share and learning
experiences.
• Create advocacy networks and mobilize resources to follow-up on community action
points which has been developed from PVA in the field work.
• Share reports and case studies with all other AAI CPs Nepal’s implementation of PVA.

11. Summing up
In zest, following things could be concluded on the whole PVA process:
• The PVA process is designed to help the community analyse their own situation.
• During a PVA, data collection, analysis and action emanating from the analysis are all
conducted with the community. Moreover, there is no further analysis done by external
facilitators alone where communities are not involved.
• The PVA process uses a variety of other sources such as secondary information and
interviews with other institutions. Information obtained from these sources has to be
included in the discussions with the community during a PVA.
• Good facilitation techniques are required to ensure a successful PVA. The tools for data
collection, analysis and planning create a framework for the facilitators and the
community to discuss.
• In some cases the topics are personal and individuals may feel uncomfortable sharing
such deep-seated issues in public. In such cases it is important to discuss with particular
groups separately through focus group discussion.


• To draw the attention of illiterate people, use of pictorial tools and techniques is very
much important.
• To ensure a successful PVA, adequate preparation in advance is required.


Workshop Proceedings

1. Background
Participatory vulnerability analysis (PVA) is a systematic process that involves
communities and other stakeholders examining their vulnerability in detail and being
empowered or motivated to take appropriate actions. It helps to understand the impact of
disasters on people’s lives, livelihoods or environment. Moreover, the rationale of PVA
is:
The basic essence of PVA is how communities can be involved in examining their
own vulnerability as well as taking appropriate actions both in short and long
term. Hence, it opens the way and room for people from all sections of society to
identify the causes of vulnerability, prioritise the causes and prepare an action
plan on the basis of it.
PVA makes use of participatory tools to ensure active community involvement.
As a result, it helps to generate reliable primary information in the participation of
all people including illiterate people.
To diagnose varieties of vulnerability as well as their underlying forces and
factors, PVA plays a vital role. It is also able to generate information on specific
vulnerable groups, hazards and locations. It focuses on the participatory process
with an objective of participation and empowerment of vulnerable people by
specifying their rights and responsibilities.
It informs communities and stakeholders for better emergency preparedness,
mitigation and response as well as execution of better development work on the
basis of pre and agreed plans and programmes, thus it is useful in integrating
development and emergencies work.

2. Objectives
The objectives of the workshop were to:
Understand the basic principles of PVA
Aware the applicability of PVA in the context of disaster and beyond
Learn and think about vulnerability and how this can be analysed effectively, and
Aware on the usage of it for the preparation of action plan to fight against
vulnerability situation

Proceedings
Day I (November 14, 2005)

3. Welcome/Introduction
The brief remark was delivered by Shyam Sundar Jnavaly, Resource Centre Coordinator
of Central Resource Centre at Action Aid Nepal Bharatpur. In his remarks, he highlighted
the vulnerability and its associated issues and how communities were struggling to fight
against the vulnerability. He said that vulnerability is considered to be the main linking
factor between emergencies and long term development work. The emergencies strategy
of ActionAid has also emphasised on analysing vulnerabilities in long-term work and


using this analysis in building local resilience, readiness and long term recovery. In
Nepal, the concept of PVA was started in 2001 and it was developed as a powerful tool in
2005 to analyse the issues of vulnerability.

Before proceeding further, he shared the schedule of day one to the participants. The
participants were given authority to amend the schedule so that they also feel ownership
and internalize what they were willing to learn from this workshop. The detail schedule
of the workshop is given in annex-1.

4. Introduction to each other
Introduction “to know each other” session was facilitated by Shyam Sunder Jnavaly. He
asked all the participants to say “their names among with participating organization and
areas of interest in the field of disaster management”. At the end of the exercise, all
participants knew each others in terms of name, the participating organization and their
areas of interest/experience in the field of disaster management.

There were 32
participants in the
workshop. The list of
names and participating
organisations is given in
annex-2.

Workshop Participants

5. Ground Rules
In order to systematise the workshop and make it more effective and meaningful, the
workshop participants agreed to set “Ground Rules”. This session was facilitated by Mr
Deepak Poudel and Mr Dhruba Raj Gautam. Those ground rules were:
Session should be started from 9 AM and end at 17 PM.
To develop concentration in each session and discussion, participants need to
“Switch up the mobile”.
Participants need to stay for a full time in each session.
Participants need to develop a culture of ‘active listening’, ‘mutual respect’ and
‘listen to and learn from each other’.

The following participants were allocated the following roles and responsibilities to
systematise the sessions of each day.

Key Activities Responsible person/(s)
Energiser : Mr. Rajesh Hamal


Overall Management : Mr. Deepak Lamichhane
Reporter : Mr. Dhruba Raj Gautam, Ms Madhavi Pradhan
Power Group analysis : Mr. Manish Pradhan, Mr. Bimal Gadal, Ms Subhala Subba,
Ms Amrita Sharma
Logistics : Mr Krishna Chandra Acharya

6. Welcome/Introduction
This session was lead by Ms Agnes Campbell. In her remarks, she highlighted the
following issues:
All the workshop participants are both “learners” and “teachers”. So, she expected
to have good discussion and interaction throughout the workshop in each
session/issue.
PVA has been beneficial to analysis the risks, hazards and vulnerability situation.
Cross fertilization of learning will provide the culture sharing and learning from
each other.
Participants need to discuss on the proposed PVA guidebook, identify the gaps, if
any paving for its further improvement.

In this session, Mr Shyam Sunder Jnavaly also highlighted the following issues
associated with the workshop.
Participants need to perceive PVA as ‘non-structured’, there is large scope to
discuss on it and to make suggestion for further improvement.
Field based learning will sharpen the knowledge of participants to look and
understand the issues of vulnerability.
PVA exercise will provide an opportunity to collect field based information, and
synthesis information to make an action plan.

Then expectations were collected from the participants. Those expectations were as
follows:
Understanding of the use of PVA beyond the vulnerability (i.e. to cover social,
political and economic issues related to people’s poverty).
Linkage of PVA for impact assessment and monitoring process.
Identification of the gaps (the types of issues to be explored for the vulnerability
analysis).
Sharing of knowledge and experience
Development of capacity to support/complement for district level plan.
Identification of the ways of collecting reliable primary information.
Expectation to hear about PVA from international experience.
Ability to distinguish the fundamental difference between PRA, RRA, PLA and
PVA.
Ways of identifying/assessing level and extent of vulnerability.
Exploration of the ways for “why people are vulnerable”.
Increase in the knowledge of “analysing the vulnerability”.
Learning of the linkage of PVA tools to other tools.


7. Develop common understanding of the terminology used in
disaster
This session was led by Shyam Sunder Jnavaly. Before initiating the work, participants
requested for the clarification of Hazards, Risks, Threats, Disaster exposure and
vulnerability. He tried to clarify the meaning and differences in meaning of these
terminologies by giving examples of drawing (mentioning the stone at the top of the hills
and how the settlements at the downstream are affected from that).

Agnes Campbell also added her experience by giving the examples to show the basic
difference among these terminologies.

An intensive discussion was held among the participants. After clarification, the
participants were requested to divide into two groups and make the list of terminology
used in disaster management and their simple meaning in local language. The participants
were asked to come in the common consensus. After the discussion, each group leader
was asked to present the group work.

After the presentation, synthesis
was made to develop the common
understanding about these
terminologies. And these agreed
meaning of each terminology was
typed and circulated to the
participants. This session helped
to develop the common
understanding about the
participants on disaster related
terms and their simple meanings.

Work to develop simple meanings of key terminologies

8. Facilitation Skills
It was realized that the role of participatory tools and techniques for PVA was crucial. It
was also agreed that the role of good facilitation skills for using PRA tools was
important. This session was led by Ms Madhabi Pradhan and Ms Amrita Sharma.

In the beginning, they shared the importance and role of effective facilitation skills for
using participatory tools and techniques. They divided workshop participants into two
groups by giving two different colours of flowers. The same flower choosers were
requested to be one group and vice versa. The task for each group was divided in the
following way.

Task for Group A: Basic principles and tools to be used for facilitation skills.
Task for Group B: Skills needed for effective facilitation.


Then two groups worked in their respective theme and prepared the presentation. But
before the presentation, Mr. Bimal Gadal sang a song that covered the issues of caste
discrimination and right based approach.

The presentation of Group A was as follows

Group A

Principles and tools

Do’s
Have enough knowledge and command over subject matter
Have knowledge about the basic norms, values and culture of ‘working
committee’
Create ‘real’ and ‘easy’ environment
Respect to all, obey the community agreed rules
Be participatory
Be of gentle nature

Don’t
Be a irrational evaluator
Be of a showy nature
Be reactive to hurt the people

Towards the end of the presentation of Group A, Agnes Campbell shared her feeling as:
Do not create ‘confrontation environment’
Be tactful and diplomatic
Recognize the basic principle of ‘social justice’, equity and right.

Similarly, the presentation of Group B was as follows:
The group identified the following skills as beneficial for the facilitators:
Language and communication
o Use of local language
o Clarity in speech
o Choice of good words/sensitive
Have good knowledge on subject matter
Ensure equal participation before initiating the task
Use ‘overhead’ and ‘back through’ approach to deal with community’s issues
Select appropriate training materials
Deliver clear ‘introduction and objective’
Have positive attitude towards community
Follow adult learning techniques
Ensure eye contact and use of body language
Show jolly nature and use appropriate energiser
Understand the importance of group dynamics
Have quick decision making power and sum up the outcomes time to time


Manage ‘over smart
participants’
Have conflict resolution
techniques
Have good listening and
observation skills
Have skills of appropriate
use of PRA and other tools
to generate primary
information

Participants are in the process of observation in the field

Once the presentations of both groups were finished, the facilitators acknowledged the
task carried out by both groups and shared their views by presenting the following tips:

Do
Be nice
Respect people
Be confident about the community ‘they can do it’
Handover the stick
Be sensitive
Watch, listen and learn
Relax
Have fun, joke and enjoy
Make adequate pre-planning
Be simple
Take/implement action

Don’t
Rush
Lecture
Criticize
Interrupt
Dominate
Wear fancy dress

9. Use of PRA and other participatory tools in PVA

This session was led by Mr Bala Ram Luitel. In his presentation, he tried to share the
meaning of PRA, its major tools; and he shared key tools and their application in the
context of collecting primary information from the field


From the discussion, it was agreed that before initiating PRA tools, following steps
should be kept in mind:
Conduct desktop study (review of secondary information)
Identify the most vulnerability areas
Share the objective clearly
Build rapport with community

Mr Shyam Sunder Jnavaly highlighted the applicability of PRA tools in the context of
PVA. He also argued that one can develop alternative tools and technique for PVA too.

It was found that most of the participants were familiar with the PRA tools and
techniques, but the main concern was “how to link PRA tools and techniques in the
context of PVA and their inter-relationship. In doing so, Ms Agnes Campbell shared her
experienced by giving simple example of each tool which is discussed hereunder
(Please refer annex-3 for PRA tools and techniques and their application in the context of
PVA).

9.1 Timeline
Agnes shared that time line is used to get the systematic development of the area and to
locate how the area was suffered from various phenomenons such as starvation, drought,
landslide, flood, hailstorm, epidemics earthquakes, deforestation etc. She gave very clear
example of ‘Conflict” and Peace Process in Sierra Leone through timeline exercise. She
shared the historical timeline, shared its linkage with drought, migration, prostitution, and
HIV/AIDS, and tried to focus how it added the path for further vulnerability. Mr Shyam
Sundar Jnavaly shared that ‘vulnerability has multiple shifting’.

9.2 Seasonal Calendar
Agnes shared that seasons are an integral part of people's lives and they exert an
important impact upon the livelihood of the local people. It reflects the perceptions of the
local people regarding seasonal variations in the various aspects. It helps to identify
heavy workload periods, periods of loan, diseases, food deficiency and wage availability
as well as flood, fire and wildlife damaged time.

Day II (November 15, 2005)
10. Recap and remarks of power group analysis
Mr Dhruba Raj Gautam highlighted the major sessions and issues raised by the
participants in the day one before starting the second day events. After recap, power
group analysed their feeling about the class room dynamics of day one as follows:
Power of language: All participants were interested to speak in Nepali.
Seat arrangement: Most of the participants in the front of the room seem active.
So it was suggested for reshuffling of seat in each day.
Mobility of the participants inside/outside the hall was high. So it was suggested
to obey ground rules.
Some participants came late, so they were sometimes confused on what was going
on (less attentive towards late comers).


Realize the “people’s power”. The facilitator’s feelings and perceptions were paid
due recognition.

11. Use of PRA and other participatory tools in PVA
(continue………)
11.1 Problem Tree
For the basic ideas to know about the applicability of problem tree to know cause and
effects relationship, Ms Agnes took an example from LUMANTI’ NGO. With the help of
participants, she drew the following problems (causes) faced by the people living in
slums and squatters and their effects as the following:
Open sewerage
Thatched house without window
Open rivers
Garbage
No social infrastructure: school/hospital
Resources in weak condition
Untitled land

Their effects
Poverty
Social discrimination

She also tried to give example of ‘causes and effects’ of migration.

Causes of migration: poverty, conflicts, droughts, disaster victims
Effects of migration: poor housing, sanitation, unsafe drinking water, denied right

Specific group has specific issue. So was beneficial. She also added that with the help of
FGD, one can further explore the following issues.
Why they are coming in that area (when and how)
Social attachment among the people etc

11.2 Transect walk
Ms Agnes shared that transect mapping helps to provide cross-sectional representation of
the different agro-ecological zones and their comparison against certain parameters
including topography, land type, land use, ownership, access, vegetation, crops,
problems, opportunities and solutions. It helps to know the most vulnerable areas and
coping strategies made by local people.

11.3 Focus group discussion
This tool helps to get specific information from same category of well-being groups.
Therefore, it is dealt as the centre of the all participatory tools. In the FGD, specific
topics are discussed where all participants are encouraged to present their views and
opinions. It also help to triangulate the information and data collected from other tools


and techniques. With the help of FGD, it is better to find out the group dynamics, social
network and solidarity.

In the discussion it was agreed that the extent/magnitude of disaster and vulnerability
may differ for different people like adult, children and women. So, special checklist
should be produced to explore the issues.

11.4 Social/Resources/Vulnerability Mapping
Mapping helps in developing an understanding of available social and natural resource as
well as the most vulnerability areas within the certain cluster.

It is prepared by local people as the
main objective of this exercise is to
involve them in the process so that
their knowledge, skills and ideas
are recognised. Local people are
considered to have an in-depth
knowledge of the surroundings
where they have survived for a long
time.

Vulnerability mappings prepared by community people

11.5 Mobility mapping
This tool gives the general picture of the mobility of people for various sectors such as
education, health, employment, marriage, treatment, seeking help in the case of disaster
and emergency, etc. in the chronological order. It helps to triangulate the information of
well-being ranking.

11.6 Venn diagram
Venn diagram helps to demonstrate
relationships (direct and meaningful or
indirect) among the various institutions or
community with other organizations in case of
coping disaster and vulnerability. It helps
project stakeholders to reflect on the nature of
coordination between the local community and
other organizations.

Venn diagram prepared by local people


11.7 Well-being ranking
This tool is used for ranking and
grouping households on the basis of
income, wealth and others perceivable
well-being criteria as expressed by the
people.
It helps to understand the people's
conceptions on wealth, well-being
and their views on socio-economic
condition related to livelihood and
vulnerability.

Venn diagram transcribed from ground in to paper

Well-being is culture specific and is difficult to measure. So, the facilitator should have
basic knowledge about the people and their culture to which he/she is working with.

11. 8 REFLECT
This session was led by Mr. Ram Dayal Yadav. He shared that REFLECT as an
abbreviation of Regenerated Fereian Literacy (through) Empowerment Community
Techniques. It is considered as:
Education without book
Jivenmukhi siksha (Life oriented education)
It helps in advocacy through raising the issues
It can also be useful in programs other than literacy program
It is a powerful tool to empower the community
It supports to raise the issues, assess them and guides for efforts to be made for
mitigating the problem
It is informal learning approach and conducted as per the wish of the community
It is unstructured and issues are finalized by the participants
This is useful for disaster management too (what, why, when, ways, effects,
results, resources).

In the discussion, the experiences of Prerana (Sindhuli) and HURADEC (Dolakha) about
REFLECT model for the empowerment of community were shared. Birth registration
campaign in Sarlahi through REFLECT model was also discussed.

At the end of his presentation, he summarised that REFLECT can
Enable the community
Explore where the resources are, how to explore them and
Aware, empowerment, action and social transformation

11.9 Conflict Analysis


This session was facilitated by Mr Anil Pant. In his presentation, he shared the major
steps for conflict analysis which are as follows (Please refer annex-4 for detail).

Conflict analysis from Development perspectives
There is no need to read out the development theory. The conflict dynamics can
be analysed from the assessment of experience.
Why CA?
o Difficult to work at community level
o Find dos and don’ts of community
o Improve the security situation
o Support community’s campaign at local level
Clarity in objective is important
What is analysis?
Causes of analysis
o Social – gender, discrimination
o Political – recognition, inclusive democracy
o Physical – geography, unequal distribution of the resources

Tier of analysis
International, regional, national and local
People-based, decentralisation, right-based
Local level analysis is not only sufficient.

Causes of conflict
Dynamics analysis (key issue, responsible actors, interest, reaction, route)
Scenario-mapping (to find the trend of history)
Analysis of triggers
Key issues
Peoples’ capacity
Humanitarian crises
Key stakeholders
Others work (on, in and around)

He also highlighted that tracking is also important for conflict analysis, as
Track (in peace process) can be
1. Formal (Maoist + Government)
2. Informal
3. Through development

After the presentation of Mr Pant, Ms Agnes inquired that how conflict analysis model
fits into the conflict of gender and youth vs. elderly group. Then Mr. Rajesh Hamal added
some points on how to link conflict analysis to PVA tools. In his presentation, he
suggested to explore the following issues before conflict analysis process is begun:
Who – actor (parties of conflict)
o Caste system (dalit, non-dalit)
o Gender (Patriarchy)


Power
o Who are vulnerable?
o Why they are vulnerable?
What are the issues/interests (interest of needs)?
What the effects on the potential consequences to create conflict/worsen
vulnerabilities?
Violence-migrated and displaced people
How to mitigate? – action plan

11.10 Gender
This session was facilitated by Mr Bimal Gadal. In his presentation, he highlighted the
following issues while analysing the gender.
Resources
Opportunities (access, control)
Roles, and
Needs

From gender perspectives, children and women are more vulnerable. It was discussed that
FGD for separate women is also needed to explore the issues of women. It is because
males always dominate even through they are in minority in the group. The promoting
factors for gender discrimination are dress, social structure, and social sympathy towards
family members. In Sarlahi, it was found that women were more victimised during river
flood. So, women should be provided space and allowed to talk and enforce affirmative
action. It was also shared that while analysing the gender, power relation and its
associated issues should be kept in the centre of the discussion.

At the end of the discussion Ms Agnes added that women are overloaded from productive
and reproductive work. So, PVA should be interlinked with gender perspectives.

11.11 Stepping Stones
Ms Sumita Mathema took this session. In her brief presentation, she expressed that it is a
tool that focuses on issues like “Who am I”, and “Look Ourselves”. This tool is mostly
used in HIV/AIDS program.

There are three key principles of stepping stones.
Maximise 3 ‘C’ (Communication, Coordination and Cooperation)
Opening up (Be familiar with each other)
Change the attitude and behaviours for social change and social transformation

During the discussion, Mr. Shyam Sundar Jnavaly shared that vulnerability analysis
could be possible from variety of tools and techniques. Stepping stone tool could be
beneficial to analyse the vulnerability. He said that disaster invites other associated
problems. For examples, from UNDP study in Chitwan to Sarlahi districts, it was found
that girls trafficking and prostitution was severe where disaster frequently occurred.


11.12 Social Inclusion, Right Based Approach and Power analysis
This session was facilitated by Mr Maneesh Pradhan (Please see annex-5 for detail). In
his presentation he shared that right means accountability, justice, self-reliance, social
recognition and claim over right. He shared the types of rights as social, economical,
political, cultural and civil. He said that for rights,
Accountability of duty bearers and participation of right holders for equality/non-
discrimination is needed.
Changes in policies, institutions, attitudes, participation and power relation is
required.

He shows how RBA cycle evolves and continues. The cycle is comprise steps: Situation-
Position-Strategy-Action-Outcome.

He shared that Children, Women, Janajali, HIV/AIDS victims, Landless, Ex-Kamaiya
and Disables are mostly excluded from the mainstreaming development. So emphasis
should be given to include these groups.

For power analysis, he focused in his presentation the need to identify key power centres,
and opportunities and challenges of each of all actors.

11.13 Sustainable Livelihood analysis
This session was facilitated by Mr Shyam Sundar Jnavaly. He shared that Sustainable
Livelihood Framework is helpful to reduce the vulnerability. It also helps to motivate
people on the necessity of collective action to increase their participation and solidarity.
He discussed the five capitals and their characteristics as follows.

Social/ Political Capital
Increase in solidarity
Development of the sense of identity, honour and belongings
Interaction through shared interest, increase in people's ability to work together
Building of relationship of trust and cooperation
Social network for innovation and development of sharing of knowledge
Ways of survivals in the time of extreme vulnerability i.e., Parma, neighbourhood
supports, etc.
Enforcement of group decision to solve problems
Formulation of the norms and values
Sharing of the power relations among the people

Human Capital
Increase in local capacity in terms of knowledge, skills and exposure.
Change in the orthodox thinking among the people.
Initiation for preparedness plans and programs.
Skilled labour force.

Financial Capital
Decrease in cost of construction of houses and infrastructures.


Increase in the mobilisation of internal resources and management.

Physical Capital
Continuation of public services.
Construction of simple infrastructures.
Maintenance of shared infrastructures.
Access to road.

Natural Capital
Preservation of the water resources.
Reclamation of the land resources for better production.
Access to better-serviced land.
Management of common resources.

At the end of the discussion, he clarified the importance of this tool by drawing the spider
diagram. He also shared that spider diagram provided clear picture about the aspects to
widen and make a plan to tackle it.

12. Synthesis of Participatory Tools and their relevancy in the
PVA context
From the discussion of variety of participatory tools and techniques, usage of different
tools and their rationale is presented below in a summarized form:

Tools To whom Rationale
Access Dalit, landless, nearly landless Access to and control over the resources
mapping (only having Ghaderi), homeless of various group of people
(used to stay in masters house),
women headed HH, disable
(differently able people), flood
and landslide victims, elderly
people, other as specified by local
people
Time line Elderly people, local elites, Historical perspectives of vulnerability,
Aguwa (traditional leaders) marginalisation,
Trend analysis Dalit, landless, nearly landless Causes and reasons of vulnerability,
(only having Ghaderi), homeless trend and its associated factors
(used to stay in masters house),
people
KIIs School teachers, VDC officials, To draw personal feelings, opinion,
Politicians/social elites, Local ideas, present status, problem, coping
money lenders, Aguwa mechanism, ways forward
(traditional leaders), Local
traders, representative of


development programs, widow,
suffer from chronic disease and
epidemic
FGDs Dalit, landless, nearly landless Opinions on group basis, group specific
(only having Ghaderi), homeless problem, coping mechanism, ways
(used to stay in masters house), forward
people
Venn diagram/ Dalit, landless, nearly landless Institutional relationship, access of
Stakeholders (only having Ghaderi), homeless vulnerable people in both institutions
analysis (used to stay in masters house), and services
women headed HH
Transect School teachers, VDC officials, Verify the most disaster affected areas,
walking Politicians/social elites, Local coping strategies and needed action to
money lenders, Aguwa mitigate disaster effects in long run
(traditional leaders), Local
traders, representative of
development programs, widow,
epidemic
Case studies Case studies related disaster To explore in-depth analysis of a
victims, trafficking, social- selected, critical phenomenon, activity
cultural phenomenon, disable and or situation
epidemic, access and control over
natural resources, access in
service providers and
development programs
Livelihood Dalit, landless, nearly landless Stability, crisis and coping mechanism,
Analysis (only having Ghaderi), homeless relative income, expenditure, credit and
(used to stay in masters house), debt)
and landslide victims, other as
specified by local people

It was agreed that PVA can be used in the following aspects:
Baseline information
Conflict analysis
Emergencies
Gender analysis
Power analysis, power dynamics, empowerment of the communities
Building local capacity building
Access power to demand right (advocacy)


13. Roll out of PVA Guidebook
This session was facilitated by Ms Agnes and Mr Shyam. In their presentation, they
highlighted that:
PVA is a systematic process
It helps in the examination of vulnerability
It can be linked with disaster preparedness and response to long-term
development
From the field work, baseline data can be generated, issue of vulnerability can be
explored and causes and effects of each vulnerability issue can be identified.

Mr Shyam also emphasised that PVA can encouraged different political parties to address
their commitment in working for the reduction of peoples’ vulnerability. Political parties
may use this tool during election campaign. Then, both Mr. Shyam and Ms. Agnes shared
the major aspects of ToR as follows.

Fix baseline (mobilise the action plan)
Map out the sources and root causes of vulnerability
o Jagatpur
o Meghauli
Develop action plan to implement it jointly with partners,
Advocate to influence and for monitoring and impact assessment.
Tips for field work
o More issues to be explored from PRA and other relevant tools
o All tools discussed may not be used
o PVA is itself a structured process

Day III (November 16, 2005)

14. Sharing of Baseline data of Meghauli Village
Area 77.18 sq. km
River Narayani, Rapti
Small river Betari, Laikhari
Population 14372, male-7543, female – 6829
HHs 2618, population density 186.21

Ethnic composition
Caste Percentage
Brahmin 30
Chhetri 8
Newar 3
Gurung 3
Tharu 28
Kumal 10
Magar 1
Other 5


Population of Kumal
Ward %
1 50
2 90
3 23

Religion
Hindu 90%,
Buddha 3%
Other 7%

Language
Nepali : 70%, Tharu : 30%

Education
Literacy (Overall) 70%
Female 60%
Male 80%

Social infrastructures
Infrastructures Number
Higher Secondary School 1
High School 2
Lower Secondary School 1
Primary School 5
Sub-Health Post 1

Number of HHs in Study Site
Bote: 3 HHs
Kumal: 43 HHs
Total: 46 HHs

The sources of livelihood of the people of study site included agriculture labour,
sharecropping, rental farming and fishing.

15. Sharing of Baseline data of Jagatpur (Ghailaghari) Village
Boundary
East/South : Rapti River/Royal Chitwan National Park
West : Sukranager
North : Patiyani/Parbatipur

Total Population : 800
Total HHs : 160


Ethnic Composition
Janagati : 95%
Dalit : 1%
Other : 4%

Name of Stakeholders working for disaster
Anugraha Church : Pillar and roofing support to 26 HHs
NRCS : Housing support for 40 HHs
BZDC : Pillar and roofing materials
RCNP : Partial support for housing

NRUSEC initiatives till now
Distribution of relief
Construction of housing,
management of toilet and safe
drinking water
Formation of disaster relief
committee
Monitoring of the measurement of
flood
Management and use of Siren

Participants in the process of simulation process

Construction of public
building for shelter
(especially for displaced
victims)
Construction of weir/intake
Distribution of utensils and
torch light

Participants are in the process of allocating the job within the team

After sharing of social-economic information of the two proposed village, Mr. Shyam
shared the logistic planning for field work as follows:
Required materials to be prepared by each group


Vehicle arrangement
(separate vehicle for each
group)
Group division on the basis
of interest
Defined roles and
responsibilities within team
members
Lunch at the field

Practice of key informant interview

After logistics planning, Ms. Agnes
shared the key activities to be carried out
from field visit and tips from Guidebook,
which were as follows:

An assessment of available resources within the village

Key activity Tips
Process Recording Page 27 (of PVA Guidebook)
FGD (women, youth, mixed) Page 28 Analytical steps (PRA and other tools)
Finalize community analysis Representation from community & presentation needed
Feedback to community By representative
Reporting group Page 26,27,24 (of PVA Guidebook)


Then all the participants divided in
to two groups on the basis of
interest. The each group was given
the separate task assuming the real
field situation as practice.

Data in the process of summing up

The task for group A was to imagine an
Urban community with
Problem of Slums and Squatters hit by
Flood disaster of 1993

The task of group B was to imagine a
Rural community with
Problem of Flood and Wildlife

Scope of Work for both groups
Transect Walk
Map of the vulnerability sites
(physical infrastructures,
hazards, risks to environment,
root causes of vulnerability)

An observation of soil erosion at river bank

Focus Group Discussion
Resource available
Who controls the resources
How to access them during flood and
Wildlife invasion


Venn diagram
CBO, NGO, and INGO working in the area
Types of capacity they have, resources they have and their relationship
Collaboration/cooperation

SWOT Analysis
Analysis of finding
Hazards, resources – (how the resources are used)
Community actions ( of the past)
Local, district and national efforts
Indicators/outcome of M&E to follow-up

Situation Analysis
Who are the most vulnerable
Types of exposure that they have experienced
Prevalence and extent of vulnerability-hazard, risk, exposure (pp6 of PVA
Guidebook)

Risk Hazard Mapping
Use analytical framework

16. Presentation by Group B (Ideal situation of Gitanager village)

Timeline
Year Major phenomenon
(BS)
036 Migration, displaced people from landslide
037 Establishment of National park
052 Big flood, wildlife destroyed 16 houses
054 Huge flood, 30 houses collapsed, 5 dead, destruction
of physical assets
058 Destruction of physical assets from flood
059 Diarrhoea epidemic (5 children were dead, starvation,
increased the workload of women).

Seasonal Calendar
Months
Description
J F M A M J Jul A Sep Oct Nov Dec
Flood
Temporary
Migration
Wildlife Problem
Epidemic

Problem Tree
Causes:
Heavy flood devastated the physical properties


Inadequate support
Lack of rehabilitation
Negligence of government
Damage of hum pipe
Lack of alternative livelihood

Effects:
Increased poverty
Conflicts/disputes
HIV/AIDS explosion
Flood threatening
Vibrant youth force migrated
Epidemics
Powerlessness

Well-being Ranking
Well-being HHs Indicators
Well-off 5 CGI roof, Job, vendor shop, livestock, involved in
CBOs/NGOs, have facility of drinking water and toilet.
Medium 5 Thatched roof, skilled labour, have only latrine, some
livestock
Poor 2 Thatched poor house, unskilled labour, depend upon the
public tap for drinking water
Ultra-poor 6 Landless, dalit, have no source of income, seasonal
migration to India, wage labour

FGD with Women
Most of the families are displaced from flood
People migrated to cities and India seasonally to earn livelihood
Only women, children and aged people are in the village
Most of the children left their school because of the family problem
The middlemen are active in girls trafficking
Women are compelled to involve in prostitution so suffer from HIV/AIDS
Women headed household unable to get neighbours’ support
People are deprived from pure drinking water and toilet facilities
Theft, dacoit and domestic violence is increasing
decision making process is dominated by male
Most of the youth are suffering from bad habits


SWOT Analysis
Strength
Strong family structure
Have facility of school/Health
Post
Social organizations are
formed

Weakness
Lack of awareness,
employment, land and
sanitation

Participants in the process of synthesis of data

Opportunities
Strong political parties
Number of development organizations
working in the area

Threats
Eviction, trafficking, and domestic
violence

A process of action plan formulation

Action Plan for (Jan-July ’05)
Proposed Activities Months Responsibilities
Collect baseline data January Community + NGO
Capacity building of CBDP February Community + NGO
Provide legal support to claim rights March Community + NGO
Implement IGG/skill development training April Community + NGO
River training April-June Actionaid Nepal
Awareness for right based approach June-July Community + NGO
Community plantation June-July DDC + Community

17. Presentation of Group A
Analysis of problem from Problem Tree
Causes
Deforestation


Negligence of government
Lack of proper plan
Lack of awareness
Weak organizational efforts
Poverty/dominance of ultra-poor
Unequal distribution of resources
Negligence of National Park
No proper enforcement of
rules/regulation of Park

Group presentation

Effects:
Destruction of physical asset and human life
Human life usually threatened by Wildlife
Crop damaged by wildlife
Destruction/collapse of physical infrastructure (Bridge, HP, School)
Erosion of productive land
Explosion of epidemic
Children deprived from education
Inadequate facilities of drinking water

Seasonal Calendar
Months
Description
J F M A M J Jul A Sep Oct Nov Dec
Flood
Epidemic
Eviction
Food deficiency

Timeline
Year Major phenomenon
(BS)
052 Settlement started, government tried to displace people but failed, occurrence of
big flood
053 Flood damaged 2 houses, 2 people died, NRCS supported the relief materials
055 Got assurance from political leaders to support flood victims, 5 set of gabion
wires obtained
058 Explosion of diarrhoea and epidemic, 5 children died, 3 women trafficked by
middlemen
060 7 houses destroyed by flood, death of 1 pregnant woman, flood swept livestock,
and 2 people died of HIV/AIDS
062 Community organization formed to tackle with disaster and to claim rights.


Venn Diagram

Schoo
RCNP
LSC

Lalupate NRUSEC
Hirapur
HP
Group Community

Club
BZMC
Hirapur DD
Group


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