Children in a changing climate

project Participatory Vulnerability Analysis for Disaster Risk Reduction in schools

theme: voice and participation

As part of ActionAid’s Disaster Risk Reduction through Schools (DRRS) project, ActionAid is adapting its Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (PVA) process to work in schools in order to make schools in high-risk disaster areas safer and enabling them to act as a locus for disaster risk reduction. This project reviews the use of the PVA process.

project particulars

co-ordinator: Tom Mitchell, IDS

partners: ActionAid

funders: ActionAid

countries: Nepal, Malawi

overview

IDS carried out an independent initial review of PVA between March 2007 and May 2007. The data collected during the background research and from two field studies in Nepal and Malawi is presented in the research report, accompanied by four short case study examples and a PowerPoint presentation, which can be used to inform the PVA discussions in other DRRS project countries.

IDS is considering ways in which climate change influences and informs the project’s implementation and to explore opportunities for mainstreaming climate resilient approaches into all kinds of DRR activities. This explains the analytical focus on climate change within the PVA review process.

key findings

By analysing the review data, the following 12 criteria for the successful use of PVA within the DRRS project have been determined:

  1. Invest enough time and resources in training facilitators

  2. Carefully manage expectations

  3. Engage with the community on a regular basis

  4. Work with long term local partners

  5. Work on all levels right from the start, especially government

  6. Remember that PVA is a process and do not expect too much at early stages

  7. Include multiple actors, especially children (in and out of school) and youth/former students of the school

  8. Share disappointments and ‘bad practice’

  9. Avoid the ‘PRA trap’

  10. Encourage facilitators to use different techniques for visualization and participation

  11. Pay attention to terminology and understanding

  12. Foster solidarity and mutual assistance