Participatory assessment of development in rural Burkina Faso : a new methodology for resolving old pains

Résumé

Abstract
Based on the participatory assessment of development (PADev) approach to assess the impact of development interventions from a community’s perspective, this paper reflects on the results of four years of field-testing in Burkina Faso. Particularly, the paper zooms in on the added value of the poverty assessment instrument that is part of PADev, and designed to enhance understanding of local poverty and people’s self-evaluations of development interventions in the community. In comparison to the multi-dimensional poverty index, the PADev poverty assessment tool appears more sensitive to local specifities and social-relational and psychological aspects of human illbeing. In comparison to the PADev approach, the traditional income based approach to poverty measurement seems to consistently underestimate the number of very poor, as well as the number of rich and very rich, whilst overestimating the number of poor. Finally, the perceived impacts on different wealth groups in the communities, point towards elite capture manifesting itself over time. Together, these findings point to the very poor being congruently excluded from development interventions and national poverty statistics. The PADev approach could shed new light on how to make this group more visible and within reach of development interventions.