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Tropical Agroforestry pp 243–257Cite as

Diagnosis and Design (D & D) Approach and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)

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Abstract

The design of agroforestry systems should be developed in response to specific needs. The basic premise of Diagnosis and Design (D & D), a method of diagnosing land management problems and designing agroforestry solutions, is the identification of a problem and determination of the appropriate type of research to solve the identified problem. The goals of D & D are: (i) to describe and analyze existing land use systems, (ii) to develop appropriate agroforestry technologies for the alleviation of constraints, and (iii) to develop appropriate research goals and a method of efficient examination. The D & D method is applied at the household (micro-level), community or watershed (meso-level), and regional or country (macro-level). On the other hand, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is a broader approach involving all the stakeholders, especially the farmers, from the beginning to the end of the diagnosis. Participatory Rural Appraisal can be defined as “an approach and method for learning about rural life and conditions from, with, and by rural people”. Participatory Rural Appraisal, which evolved from RRA, or Rapid Rural Appraisal, i.e., a series of techniques used for quick identification, appraisal and evaluation of information on rural resources relevant for planning action, is the most popular participatory research method, and has been used in research since the 1990s.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Alain Atangana & Scott Chang

  2. Institute of Integrative and Systems Biology, Université Laval, 2208 Pavillon C.-E. Marchand, Quebec, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Alain Atangana

  3. Forest and Wood Sciences, Université Laval, Quebec, Québec, Canada

    Damase Khasa

  4. West and Central Africa Regional Program, World Agroforestry Centre, Yaounde, Cameroon

    Ann Degrande

Authors
  1. Alain Atangana
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  2. Damase Khasa
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  3. Scott Chang
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  4. Ann Degrande
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Correspondence to Alain Atangana .

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Atangana, A., Khasa, D., Chang, S., Degrande, A. (2014). Diagnosis and Design (D & D) Approach and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). In: Tropical Agroforestry. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7723-1_13

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