The Tool
In the process of conducting the participatory community development planning, it is important to understand the geographical area under discussion. This provides the relational basis without which it would be impossible to plan properly. The transect is a stroll through the village by a few community members and the participatory planning team. The team makes observations and notes on the physical environment with the aimed of:-
- Understanding the spatial relationships between resources
- Gaining a deeper understanding of the community’s problem through observation and discussion
- Cross-checking information that was gathered using the other tools like the village resource map
- Gathering specific information of technical nature like soils, topography, socio-economics etc.
Implementing the tool
A transect actually a leisurely walk through the village talking to people along the way, visiting a few homes and most importantly observing. The walk should be mapped out in such a way that the most important resources and problem areas will be reached. In the course of walking the participatory planning team should makes comprehensive notes on the vegetation, crops, animals, water resources, health facilities, education facilities and other infrastructure. These should be then triangulated against the resource map development on the first day plus the village vision map. The transect walk may turn out to be a major physical exercise and thus should be planned properly in advance.
Output
The output
of a transect walk is a detailed record of all the observations made including
resources, their state, problems and opportunities. To ease the recording of
such information, a transect cross section as exemplified below. The key output of the exercise is to triangulate information gathered using all the other tools and as such should be among the final data collection tools before starting problem analysis.
