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This paper presents a set of methods and tools that can be used to assess the community networking and information needs of specific communities and thereby influence the design of ICT projects. It describes a strategy that uses a range of both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to undertake such an assessment, and provides a specific case study of an ICT project in rural Tamil Nadu, India. The study gathered data on the following topics: socio-economic status, agricultural marketing and price search, availability of information on agricultural problems, employment availability and search, media use, household spending, and use and satisfaction with government services. These data are used to construct an 'information and communications profile' that depicts current ICT and media usage and existing sources of information for various community agents (farmers and producers, laborers, government, etc.). The methods and costs at which agents obtain information, as well as gaps and information needs are analysed. These analyses demonstrate opportunities for community and economic development through improved information access, and identify critical issues that should be considered in the design of ICT projects

This paper reviews the strengths and limitations of different child friendly cities initiatives in Italy and the many measures by national, regional and local governments to support them. City initiatives have sought to respond to the constraints that industrialisation and urbanisation have placed on children’s safe mobility, use of city space and participation. Many of the initiatives described have promoted children’s participation in city governance, often through children’s councils that developed proposals for city governments. Also described are special provisions by municipal authorities to ensure more attention to children’s issues, many of them involving environmental improvements that benefit children (for example, making children’s routes between home and school safer, expanding parks, creating bicycle tracks). The paper also describes children’s assessment of impacts, also their critical views of administrators who failed to keep their promises and teachers who were too controlling in participatory projects

This report examines the usefulness of locally generated information material to (near-) subsistence level farmers in Uganda and Ghana. It questions the assumption that non-literate farmers do not benefit from information material and shows the variety of vectors and strategies that communities use to disseminate new knowledge. It examines the conventional theoretical and practical bases for the provision of information and contrasts these with practice at community level. The starting point for the report is a survey of Footsteps readership by Tearfund. Footsteps is a widely disseminated newsletter on community development, aimed at near-subsistence level farmers. It seeks to provide farmers with printed agricultural information in their own language and appropriate for their situation

The purpose of this handbook is to provide course participants with key points for each session, case studies, exercises and a structured format for keeping notes during their field experience. Therefore, the handbook is not meant to serve as a stand-alone guide to participatory programme development (PPD), but as a hands-on tool for use during the course. The handbook is divided into three main sections: key points from the training sessions; case studies, exercises and PLA resources; and field notes