PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 3 Assessing women's needs in Gaza using participatory rapid appraisal techniques

Save the Children Federation/US (SCF) has been implementing development projects with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (Israeli-Occupied Territories) since 1978. Like many other international and local NGOs, SCF found itself implementing women’s activities year after year without taking stock of women’s expressed needs and their own proposed solutions. A better understanding of the interplay of social, economic, cultural, ideological and political factors in Gaza was critical to developing more appropriate strategies in response to women’s needs. As a result, Save the Children organised a Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) focussing on women in the Gaza Strip in August 1990. The purpose was to understand the social and economic roles of women better and to obtain more information to improve women’s projects. In addition, the PRA introduced women in Gaza for the first time to participatory research techniques.