Rights-based approaches
The UNHCR tool for participatory assessment in operations
Conducting participatory assessments with refugees
Authors:
Publisher:
United Nations [UN] High Commission for Refugees , 2006
Refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees must be at the centre of decision-making concerning their protection and well-being. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the protection problems they face, it is essential to consult them directly and to listen to them. Participatory assessment is a process of building partnerships with refugee women and men of all ages and backgrounds by promoting meaningful participation through structured dialogue. This document details a tool which outlines a series of steps to follow for conducting a participatory assessment with refugees or other persons of concern. The methodology presented in this tool can be used for conducting general participatory assessments on a range of protection risks and supporting your daily monitoring activities. It can also serve as a basis for follow up and specialised assessments using tools designed for specific areas such as education, health, HIV or nutrition.
The tool outlines ten steps for conducting participatory assessments and discusses the ethics and guiding principles of the programme. The document concludes that when conducting participatory assessment exercises, multifunctional teams may be presented with a range of issues and some persons of concern, especially those who have been traditionally excluded or discriminated against, may have urgent problems which will need to be addressed immediately. To build trust, staff and partners will need to spend time working together with communities to address and prevent such problems. Over time, this process will enable all the actors to move beyond the more immediate problems to in-depth dialogue and analysis and the development of creative solutions.
The following ten steps are detailed in this document:
- reviewing existing information
- mapping diversity
- methods of enquiry
- selecting themes
- facilitating discussion
- systematising the information gathered
- follow-up actions
- comprehensive analysis of the findings and prioritization
- recording meetings
- participatory planning workshop
