PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 4 Using Rapid Rural Appraisal for project identification: Report on a training exercise in Jama'are local government area, Bauchi State, Northern Nigeria

In April this year we co-operated with Ahmadu Bello University in running a pilot course on rural project identification for heads of local government departments of Agriculture and of Community Development of several states in Northern Nigeria. The course was based on fieldwork in five villages in the Jama'are local government area, Bauchi state. We focussed the fieldwork on applying Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) techniques, namely wealth ranking, community, group and household interviews, and various diagrammatic instruments (transects, seasonal calendars, historical profiles and village maps). The purpose was to provide the course participants with improved tools for assessing rural needs in relation to local government services. Here are some of the high and low lights of the work and what we learned about trying out these RRA techniques in a training course.