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BOOKS, GUIDES AND MANUALS

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"Documentation, capitalisation, sistematizacion: A compilation of methods and approaches". Bertie van der Meij et al., 2008

The purpose of this section is to provide visitors with an overview and taste of the many methods available. Having all these resources together makes it easier to see the commonalities between them. Our objective is not to show which one is best, nor to qualify them in any way. This section does not include a theoretical analysis, nor looks in detail at the subtle differences that come with a name (e.g., between "sistematización" and "capitalisation").

Readers are encouraged to look at the common elements, and select the one which is best suited to their context and situation, or to combine elements from different approaches, and to use this all to start a documentation process. Your comments are welcome!

Self-assessing good practices and scaling-up strategies in sustainable agriculture - Guidelines for Facilitators
Christian Berg, Mirco Gaul, Romy Lehns, Astrid Meyer, Franziska Mohaupt and Miriam Schröder, 2004.
SUSTAINET, Eschborn, Germany

The core idea behind the Sustainable Agriculture Information Network (Sustainet), and therefore of these guidelines, was that many development organisations and farmers around the world have had positive experiences with sustainable agricultural practices. By documenting their lessons learnt, assessing the preconditions and impact of good practices, and communicating them to others, these one-time, all-too-often "island" solutions have the potential to be developed into strategies that are transferable ... Read more

Orientaçoes para elaboração de sistematização de experiências
Cordula Eckert, 2009
EMATER/RS, Porto Alegre, Brasil

Written in Portuguese, this guide was prepared as part of the effiorts of EMATER in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. EMATER is the Brazilian extension organisation, for whom systematisation is a practice that is gaining ground. The text starts with a few definitions, presenting a systematisation process as a "critical interpretation of a practical experience", or as a ... Read more

Knowledge profiling - promoting easy access to knowledge and experience generated in projects and programmes
Albert Engel and Walter Huppert, 2007
GTZ / IFAD

This is a new and simple method meant as a supporting tool to knowledge management in development cooperation, It provides a quick reference to the knowledge generated in projects and programmes. Second, it puts the focus on those areas of knowledge judged to be worth mentioning by the stakeholders themselves. And third, it presents a method that facilitates comparison of knowledge acquisition between projects and even cross-sectorally. ... Read more

Guidelines for identifying and documenting Good Practices for pro-poor livestock development and
Concise guidelines for drafting a Good Practice Note in the context of pro-poor livestock development
Lucy Maarse et al., 2007/2008
South Asia Pro Poor Livestock policy programme, SAPPLPP

These two documents, developed by the South Asia Pro Poor Livestock Policy Programme, are meant to help organisations and individuals learn from existing "good practices" (or GPs) - especially in terms of pro-poor livestock development. They are to help identify and document GPs..... Read more

Documenting, evaluating and learning from our development projects: A participatory systematization workbook
Daniel Selener, Christopher Purdy and Gabriela Zapata, 1998
IIRR, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction

The first section of this guide defines systematisation as “a methodology which facilitates the ongoing description, analysis and documentation of the processes and results of a development project in a participatory way”. This process leads to the generation of new knowledge, which is then fed back and used to make decisions and improve performance.... Read more

Systematization to capture project experiences: A guide
Pushkin Phartiyal, 2006.
ENRAP, Knowledge Networking for Rural Development in Asia/Pacific Region.
IDRC Regional Office for South Asia,
208 Jorbagh, New Delhi 110003, India.

This guide is based on ENRAP’s experience, in particular on an exercise conducted on request of the North Eastern Regional Community Resource Management Project (NERCRMP) in Meghalaya, India. It starts by defining systematisation as an evaluative and participatory technique for documentation. It is a methodology that, with the help of a facilitator... Read more

Guía metodológica de sistematización
Jaime Almenara Merel, 2004.
PESA, Programa Especial para la Seguridad Alimentaria en Centroamérica / FAO

Written in Spanish, this guide was prepared for FAO’s PESA programme in Central America. This is a food security programme currently running in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, described as one of the most important initiatives started in order to fight hunger and malnutrition in the region. This programme looks at a systematisation process as a reflection and critical analysis of field experiences... Read more

Methodology for capitalization and enhancement of the experiences of IFAD programmes in west and central Africa
Ndèye Coumba Fall and Adama Abdoulaye Ndiaye, 2005.
FIDAFRIQUE, Information Network for Rural Development in West and Central Africa

This document is the outcome of a request formulated by the FIDAFRIQUE network to build an approach based on the capitalisation and enhancement of experiences which could be easily used by the IFAD projects and programmes. This approach is designed to help them implement an internal reflection, experience and knowledge sharing process... Read more

Introduction a la capitalisation d’experiences. Note de synthese du module de formation
Gilbert Graugnard and Véronique Quiblier, 2006.
CIEDEL, Centre International d’Etudes pour le Développement Local

This document was written to support a two-day course aimed at the staff of non-governmental development organisations working in the field. It starts by discussing why it is necessary to work on the “capitalisation” of experiences. Among the reasons, the authors consider the need to “fight against the evaporation of experiences”... Read more

Sistematización de experiencias locales de desarrollo rural: Guía metodológica
Julio Berdegue, Ada Ocampo and German Escobar, 2007.
FIDAMERICA – PREVAL

This is a revised edition of the guide published in 2000, which has been used to document many of the projects supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Latin America. It starts by looking at “sistematización” as a concept... Read more

Learning and sharing experience: Lessons for learning processes in NGOs
Philippe Villeval and Philippe Lavigne Delville, 2004.
Serie Traverses No. 15, Groupe Initiatives

Making a difference between tacit (or implicit) knowledge and explicit knowledge, the authors look at the necessary process of creating collective intelligence, and at the importance of learning collectively from experience. Capitalisation is seen as a process of externalisation, as it makes tacit knowledge explicit. Furthermore, taking part in the process of capitalisation can develop the capacities of organisations implementing projects similar to the one analysed. This is not to be an academic exercise... Read more

Writeshops: Producing information materials through participatory writeshops
Paul Mundy, 2007.
Online information

This site looks in detail at the advantages of “writeshops” for producing information materials. This technique was developed by the author and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in the Philippines, and is seen as an extremely flexible approach. Writeshops are especially useful because they speed up the production process and make it far more efficient... Read more

PIPA – Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis
Boru Douthwaite, 2008.
Online information

Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is a project planning, monitoring and evaluation approach. It is a relatively young and experimental approach that draws from programme theory evaluation, as well as from social network analysis and research, to understand and foster innovation. It is designed to help the people involved in a project, programme or organisation make explicit their theories of change... Read more

Story guide: Building bridges using narrative techniques
Stephanie Colton, Victoria Ward and Jeannine Brutschin, 2006.
SDC, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

This guide highlights the fact that telling a story is a simple and familiar process, while working with stories for a specific purpose can be more complicated. The authors aim to help individuals“develop competence and confidence as tellers or facilitators of telling”, considering that people can benefit from such a process in many ways. Storytelling can help individuals... Read more

Giving voice: Practical guidelines for implementing Oral Testimony Projects
Panos Oral Testimony Programme, 2003.
Panos Institute

On the basis of the experience accumulated by the Panos Oral Testimony programme, this manual provides simple and practical guidelines for implementing an oral testimony project (also available in Spanish and French). It starts by presenting a definition for an oral testimony, and by looking at the relationship it can have with development. The manual then looks... Read more

Insights into participatory video: A handbook for the field
Nick and Chris Lunch, 2006.
Insight U.K

The first part of the guide presents participatory video as a set of techniques to involve a group or community in the process of sharing and creating their own film. This is seen as a very good way of bringing people together to explore a particular issue, to voice concern or to tell a story. “This process can be very empowering, enabling a group or community to take action to solve their own problems... Read more

Documentación de experiencias campesinas con uso de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación: Un instrumento de gestión del conocimiento local
Luis Carlos Aguilar, Jocelijn Francois, Anne Piepenstock and Sergio Quispe, 2005.
Fundación AGRECOL Andes

After a brief introduction, the authors highlight the importance of local knowledge and of local capacities in development. In order to be effective, all development processes need to start by focusing on the self-esteem of the population. They must consider the possibilities which local knowledge and the capacities of the local population can bring, especially when looking at agroecology, agricultural production and rural development... Read more

The “Most Significant Change” technique: A guide to its use
Rick Davies and Jess Dart, 2005.

The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique is defined as a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. In brief, it refers to the collection of significant change stories emanating from the field level, and the systematic collection of the most significant of these stories by a group of individuals. These stories are then read and discussed in detail... Read more

Learning from Experience: A manual for organising, analysing and documenting field based information
Jorge Chavez-Tafur, Karen Hampson, Anita Ingevall and Rik Thijssen, 2007.
ILEIA, Centre for Information on Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture

This guide looks at documentation as a process which seeks to organise the available information, analyse it in detail, draw conclusions and generate new knowledge, and share these results. A main objective is to show that a documentation process does not need to be complicated, and that it does not have to be run by an external consultant. It presents some basic principles... Read more