Participatory groups are formed around activities that meet the identified priority needs and aspirations of those who wish to become members.
The purpose of these activities is primarily economic and developmental: to increase members' production and income, reduce their costs, promote financial self-reliance and contribute to community welfare.
Although group activities vary widely, four general types can be distinguished:
▪ Direct income-raising activities. Groups may intensify production of food or cash crops, develop small-scale animal husbandry, aquaculture or agro-processing, and build small scale irrigation, drainage or anti-erosion systems. Other activities include development of low-cost storage, transport and marketing facilities, supply points for inputs and micro-industries such as blacksmithing.
▪ Cost-saving activities. These include activities that reduce production costs, such as bulk purchasing of inputs, group transport and marketing of products, and consumer savings through joint purchasing of consumer goods in bulk. Groups might also benefit from social savings — e.g. group agreement to cut spending on alcohol — and social insurance through group welfare funds.
▪ Production-facilitating activities. These include consolidating members' holdings for joint production, cleaning irrigation canals, building or repairing roads, and village electrification. At the political level, groups might lobby for enforcement of land reform laws.
▪ Community development activities. Many groups undertake social and cultural activities in the fields of health and sanitation, education and family planning. In many areas there is an acute need for group action to promote better nutrition and improved food storage, and install clean water supplies.
Selecting activities
PPP emphasizes income-generating or cost-saving activities based on local experience and low-cost technology. These undertakings do not replace but are meant to supplement members' normal production.
Activities of this type are most likely to broaden the groups' economic base, mobilize savings, strengthen group cohesion and develop their enterprise management skills. Groups are encouraged to undertake social or community improvement activities only at a later stage.
It is important that — as far as possible — each group identifies, plans, carries out and evaluates its own activities. This is essential for group development and, eventually, self-reliance. While group promoters have an important role in encouraging group activities, especially in the initial stages, theirs is a facilitating role that will be reduced gradually as the groups develop.
| Raising income PPP groups have developed a wide variety of income-generating activities. In Ghana, they are engaged in maize farming, cassava processing and production of baskets and beads. In Thailand, they raise pigs, poultry and freshwater fish. Zambian groups have set up rural nurseries to propagate cashew seedlings for sale. In Sri Lanka, groups earn income from brickmaking (at right). |  |
Since the main objective of any enterprise is to produce something that people will buy, the group is taught how to conduct simple market surveys in their community in order to identify a product or service needed and how much customers are prepared to pay for it.
The group then decides whether members have the resources and skills to supply it. The group is encouraged to choose a product or service it can produce economically and well, avoiding complex production processes.
Next, the group calculates what is required to establish the enterprise, i.e. what skills and other resources each member can contribute. The final, and most important step, is to calculate expected profit.
Each group prepares a simple group business plan dealing with the socio-economic conditions, resources and problems of the participating households. They also prepare a schedule of operations and plans for future subsidiary onor off-farm income-raising activities of individual members that may strengthen their economic base.
Small-scale feasibility studies may be needed in order to produce workable proposals for group activities. These studies consider existing income-generating and other activities promoted by government or NGO agencies in the area. The identification of viable group activities also forms part of on-going action research — for example, a number of proposals may emerge from household survey data.
Group promoters help groups examine the feasibility of proposed activities
Problems in group activities
The first hurdle faced by most groups is that of financing the activity. While the project may envisage the provision of credit for the groups, experience indicates that initial activities should be funded by group members through their own savings.
This ensures that the scope of the activity is within the group's existing capacity and resources, builds commitment to the group and reduces debt dependency.
Another common problem in developing activities is the groups' need for training. Members often have low literacy and numeracy skills, both of which handicap sound management. The project may need to develop training materials tailored to their learning capacities. Unfortunately, there is a great lack of such materials in developing countries.
As a group develops its activities and sees the rewards they bring, it usually begins to undertake additional, more complex enterprises. The risk here is that groups may “bite off more than they can chew”. Group promoters help their groups examine objectively the feasibility of proposed new activities by assessing the availability of group resources, funding and local markets.
Finally, the groups need to examine very carefully the feasibility of undertaking collective production activities. Experience with PPP has shown that while group members obtain better returns by sharing production inputs and experience, many have learnt — the hard way — that actual production is often best conducted on an individual basis. Many attempts to farm communal plots have failed owing to disputes over the allocation of labour and the division of income.
Project staff generally advise those groups wishing to use communal plots to plan the activity together, but divide the land into individual plots for production. Collective efforts are better suited to the sharing of newly acquired technical skills, or expensive or laborious tasks such as transporting inputs and produce.
