PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH Challenges of Implementation

The Ideal Scenario  Communities and community members engaged in the research as active agents (design, implementation and communication of outcomes)  Learning continues to inform community reflection and action (and that of other communities)  Learning continues to inform the research process

The Challenges  Research project has no grassroots base or ownership  The communities investigated are in crisis. Action research would be a luxury  Partner time, resources and ability to commit (OAU restructuring)

What We Did  Collaboration between academics and practitioners  Use of participatory research methodology drawn from PAR tools  Feedback and validation with participating communities

The Way Forward  Focusing on using the learning from the research to inform the work of Oxfam and its affiliates  Opportunities to disseminate findings to Oxfam and extended NGO community (national and local)  Opportunities to feed into strategizing around the water governance programme and downward accountability to the affected communities  Through this, opportunities for follow up and support community action  Opportunities to feed into other Oxfam initiatives such as the Active Citizenship and Accountability hub

Remaining Challenges  Complexity of research can make it difficult to pin point findings that can be used for learning and application  Partners in the research need to plan and budget for activities and, ensure they have the available time, money, human and material resources to implement initiatives.  Need to keep abreast of rapidly changing situation and ensure action research contributes to, rather than hampers, the need for immediate action.

Lessons Learned  The ambition for Participatory Action Research has to be matched with the reality of the research context  Involvement of “research subjects” requires their ownership over the process from the beginning  Timing, resources, length of commitment are important considerations  Rapidly changing political and policy context may prove contrary to the slower cycle of learning and action  Research and development partners need to develop strong-two way information sharing  Some participation and applied learning are better than none!