4.1. From a set of independent experiences to common aspects of participation

Three persons visited and analysed three fairly different development projects. As the three projects illustrate, they are different in their location, size, age etc. and. most importantly, they differ in what they want to achieve. The only three aspects they have in common, and for which they have been chosen as examples, are:

· they are all in Africa (but Africa is big!)
· they all provide advice to farming families (agricultural extension projects)
· in one respect or another, they were considered to be extraordinary with regard to the involvement of their clients in the way they are working.

The three visiting persons shared a common understanding of what participation means and a framework for analysing the projects.

Would it be possible to distil from the three projects some aspects of participation that are common to all the visited projects, or even to find aspects of participation that can usefully be applied in extension in general?

With this question in mind, the three analysing persons went for a retreat. In a first step they presented their case studies to one another. Using the card and chart technique they pulled out the interesting aspects concerning participation from each example. In a second step these aspects were grouped in clusters, then rearranged and finally completed. This intermediate result was presented to a group of specialists. The results presented here are based on their feedback.