MODULE 4
Community profile

Why do community profiles?

The purpose of a community profile is to enable mission members to develop a sufficient understanding of the community as a whole to be able to:

decide which household livelihood strategies to investigate in more detail;
decide which local institutions might be important for household livelihood strategies and need to be investigated in more depth;
understand the context in which households and local institutions operate so that they can identify linkages
ultimately, design and implement more effective and sustainable projects.

The profile does not need to be "definitive" - the mission does not need to know everything about the community in which it is working. Nor does it imply that once the community profile has been "completed", investigators have no more to learn about the community as a whole. Everything they uncover during the rest of their field visits will deepen their understanding of the community and improve the richness and complexity of their "community profile". But what they learn during this initial community profile will provide them with an entry point so that they know where to look, who to talk to and what approach to use during the rest of their work.

What do we mean by community?

From a practical point of view, it is important for missions to work with a pragmatic concept of the rural community as a social reality of operational significance which can be easily identified in practice.

Box - Definition of "community"

A "community" refers to the locus where all members of a group of people having some form of collective claim over a territory and recognizing some form of collective governance can be given the opportunity to influence decisions in matters of public choice that affect their livelihood (i.e.: the locus where direct participatory democracy is a concrete possibility).

The above definition implies: (a) a territory, (b) that all residents in the territory know each other, or are in a position to do so easily and (c) that community members share institutions of local public governance.

The Rapid Guide will use the term "community" as roughly interchangeable with the term "village".^[6]

Topics for key informant meetings with community leaders

Characteristics of the community: population, households, main livelihood activities
Community resource base: land, water, natural resources, infrastructure and services
Vulnerability context - shocks, stresses affecting livelihoods of villagers

Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) exercises with leaders:

Community history (time line) - frequency of shocks and coping mechanisms
Vulnerability context: proportion of households who are food and income insecure in an average year, bad year, good year (reasons)
Social map: location of all households
Wealth ranking: typical characteristics of wealth and well-being groups in the community
- Household composition (human capital: labour force, migration, education, dependency status) by socio-economic group
- Household assets by wealth group (access to land, water and natural resources; livestock ownership; physical and financial capital)
- Typical social capital by wealth group
- Typical livelihood strategies and sources for each wealth group
- Typical livelihood outcomes by wealth group
- Rough estimate of proportion of households in each wealth category
- Estimate of women-headed households in each wealth category
- Upward or downward mobility by socio-economic category: which categories of households are increasing their wealth; staying the same; falling into poverty (reasons)
- Precise identification of households in each wealth category (on social map)
Initial community institutional profile (see Checklist 4A for a fuller set of questions)
Venn diagram of local institutions and their relative importance for the village
Rank groups in order of importance for livelihoods and poverty reduction

Focus group meetings

("ordinary" people - non-leaders - separate groups of women and men)

Local resource map: main land types, livelihood activities on each land type, physical infrastructure (roads, public transportation, irrigated areas, water points, schools, health posts, nearest market, electricity, banks, agricultural extension, etc.)
Seasonal activity calendar (crops, livestock, forest, off-farm, domestic work, gender roles)
Vulnerability context: shocks, stresses; proportion of households who are food insecure in an average year, bad year, good year (reasons); proportion of households who are income insecure in an average year, bad year, good year (reasons)
Problem analysis module: Perceived livelihood problems, causes of problems, coping mechanisms and livelihood opportunities of women and men (separately)
Feedback on project activities and preferred service providers

Module 4 - Checklist 4A - Questions for a community profile

Community history and trends

How long has the community been in existence and how was it founded?
When did different social, economic, ethnic and cultural groups settle in the community?
How has the community changed over time and what has caused those changes?

Resources

What are the main natural resources available to the community?
Who uses them and how are they used? Who does not use them?
Where are they located?

Vulnerability context

What are the main sources of vulnerability?
How often do shocks hit the community?
How do people cope with shocks?

Livelihoods

What are the different activities that households in the community use to support their livelihoods?
Who is involved in those livelihood activities (men/women, young/old, different social and economic groups) and how many people and households depend on them?
When do those activities take place (time of day/month/season) and where?

Community structure

How many people and households live in the community?
What is the gender composition and age structure of the community?
What different social, economic, ethnic and cultural groups are there in the community?
What are the relationships among these groups?
How are those groups defined?
Where do those different social, economic, ethnic and cultural groups live?

Local institutions

What formal organisations and associations are there in the community?
What rules, regulations and customs are in place?
Who is affected by them and how?

Community infrastructure

What services are available in the community (transport, power and water supply, markets, agricultural extension, health, education, etc.)?
Who has access to these services? Who uses the services?
How expensive are the user fees for these services?
Community feedback on the relevance, quality, timeliness and affordability of services

Perceived problems, opportunities and priorities

Key livelihood problems, opportunities, and priorities as seen by leaders, women and men

Module 4 - Checklist 4B - Guide for analysis of community profiles

What is the pattern in the community regarding

Access to land and water (typical farm size, range of variation, landlessness)

Access and control over forests, grazing land, water bodies, wild products
Livestock ownership and management systems
Ownership of productive capital such as farm equipment and enterprises
Ownership of personal assets (houses, vehicles, consumer goods)
In and out migration and remittances
Social and political organization
How do marriage customs work?
How does inheritance work?

How does the historical, political and institutional context influence access to assets?

Access of different wealth groups to land and water
Access and control by wealth groups over common property resources
Livestock ownership by wealth group
Ownership of productive capital by wealth group
Human capital (household size, composition, migration, education and skills)
Social capital (kin networks, membership in/ influence over organizations)

How do the assets of different wealth categories affect their livelihood strategies?

What are the main causes of poverty (as seen by the locals)?

Is life in the community getting better or worse, and for whom, and why?

How are local institutions evolving?

Changes in the power structure
New organizations
Old institutions or organizations that may be losing their former influence (give reasons)
Others that remain strong in the face of change (give reasons)
Changes in how community members make decisions

What are the biggest livelihood problems faced by the community?

As seen by community leaders
As seen by male citizens
As seen by female citizens
As seen by the poor
As seen by the non-poor

What are the top livelihood opportunities as seen by different people in the community?

Priorities/opportunities as seen by leaders, men and women, poor /non-poor (each category separately)
To what extent do leaders and ordinary people agree on the ranking of livelihood problems and opportunities?
To what extent do women and men, or poor and non-poor agree?

^[6] In cases where governments have grouped several hamlets into a single administrative village, the "community" may coincide with the hamlet. In areas where scattered settlement patterns prevail, "communities" can exist even in the absence of "villages." In some highly populated areas where towns of over 10,000 people are still referred to as "villages," the "community" may coincide with a neighbourhood within the larger village. Although the French term "commune" and its Spanish equivalent "municipio," are sometimes translated as the "community," we prefer in the Rapid Guide to treat them as equivalent to the English "district" and to reserve the term "community" for villages having not more than around 500 households.

MODULE 4 Community profile

MODULE 4
Community profile