Medium resolution

2. Socio-economic
data collection
2.3
Village history
The purpose of the focus group on village history is to obtain
a quick identification of the main drivers of changes in the village
and their impacts on village landscape and livelihoods.
Historical conflicts within or between villages are given special
attention as these must be taken into consideration during the
village boundary and village zoning activities.
The first step consists of identifying certain periods in the village
history since its establishment. Then for each period identified,
villagers are asked to describe changes in:
• Infrastructure: schools, roads, meeting rooms, irrigation
systems, etc.
• Population: people migrations, diseases, etc.
• Agricultural systems: crops cultivated, land management,
technical innovations, etc.
• Livestock system: types of animals, herd size, diseases,
livestock management, etc.
Quantitative approximations of the household numbers, rice
yields, rotation periods and numbers of animals are also estimated
for each period. It is important to highlight the main
changes, and identify the differences between the previous
periods.
2.4
Problem census
The problem census focus groups aim to identify problems related
to village agricultural and forest land, and opportunities
to address these by land management plans and village extension
programs. Men and women work in two separate focus
groups as the problems identified are often different. After
having summarised and listed all the problems, all participants
come together and rank them in order of importance.
Each problem is first discussed in each gender group and then
again during a problem solving session involving both men and
women in order to identify the causes of each problem, the impacts
and suggested solutions and/or opportunities. Again, the
group size should be between 5 and 10 knowledgeable people
(e.g. from the Committee of Village Elders and/or village leaders)
so that the group is representative of the village in terms of
ethnicity, social status, age and wealth distribution.
The staff facilitate discussions and record results on poster
paper as the discussion progresses. Men and women’s group
discussion results are aggregated in a ‘village name’_diagnosis
Excel spreadsheet.
TIP
District authorities collect taxes in
proportion to the number of animals,
the size of the labour force or number
of plots. To keep taxes low, local communities
are used to the systematic
under-reporting of the numbers given
to the administration. Therefore special
attention should be paid to explaining to
the village community that the data are
not collected for tax purposes, but are
aimed at guiding villagers through the
zoning process.
Even though villagers are told that the
data are not used to collect taxes, most
of the time villagers admit that during
the land zoning process they gave
incorrect numbers because they did
not realize the importance of the information
they were asked for. The area
under rotational crops obtained from
the household surveys and the current
land use map designed through PLUP
should therefore be cross-checked using
a satellite image of the village (§7.2).
HANDBOO K - Socio-economic data collection
Participatory Land Use Planning (PLUP) HANDBOOK
The staff facilitate discussions and record results on poster
For more information
paper as the discussion progresses. The results are summarized
and computed in the ‘village name’_diagnosis Excel
spreadsheet.
PLUP Toolbox 7:
Synthesizing PLUP knowledge in a village
monograph
7