PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 7 Interaction for irrigation: how analysis guided a construction project in Peru

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 7 Interaction for irrigation: how analysis guided a construction project in Peru Natasha van Dijk Introduction influence more strongly local development through their own decisions, taken on the basis of their own criteria, criteria which flow from Participatory techniques and approaches, such a collective or individual pr ocess of analysis. as PRA, are often only used in the planning phase of a project. Yet the information The process of participatory generated during the early stages may only intervention become meaningful later in the development process. This article describes the analysis that took place during different stages in the Early in 1997, the Institute of Water and rehabilitation of a small-scale irrigation system Environmental Management (IMA), a in the Peruvian Andes. The users analysed not governmental agency in the Peruvian Andes, only the issues related to the physical received technical and financial assistance construction of the infrastructure but also the from the Dutch Development Organisation subsequent `social construction' of their (SNV/Peru) to start a two year pilot project. It technical ideas. Initially hesitant in their aimed to develop and apply participatory dealings with external organisations, they methodologies in which equal opportunities became keen initiators of ...