82
SECTION III
CONSOLIDATING THE PROTOCOL
AND DEVELOPING A STRATEGY
A.
COMMUNITY PRIORITIZATION
The process of mapping the community’s foundations likely elicited an incredible wealth of information in
the form of reams of notes, stacks of chart paper, and folders of photographs and maps. All of this
information is important and valuable and should be managed with care and respect, especially if any is
sensitive or confidential.
The next stage of the process is prioritizing particular issues to address in the community protocol.
Prioritization can often be done through further community discussions and the use of simple tools such
as voting and ranking, either through private ballots or an open space. For example, the topics with the
most votes or highest overall rankings could be included in the protocol. Another useful tool is called
pairwise ranking, which involves creating a matrix of topics listed in the same order across the top row
and left column (see Table 17 for a fictitious example). Each pair is compared and people indicate their
preferences. The topic with the highest number of ‘preferred’ boxes has the highest priority. As people’s
priorities are influenced by their roles in the community and personal interests, ensure opportunities for
broad participation in this process. This could be in the form of large community workshops, focused
group discussions, leaders’ meetings, and one-on-one interviews.
Table 17: Example of a pairwise matrix used to prioritize ideas for income generation projects
Vegetables
Livestock
Fruit Trees
Fish Farm
Bee Keeping
B.
Vegetables
X
Livestock
Livestock
X
Fruit Trees
Vegetables
Livestock
X
Fish Farm
Vegetables
Livestock
Fruit Trees
X
Bee Keeping
Bee Keeping
Bee Keeping
Bee Keeping
Bee Keeping
X
FOCUSING AND CLARIFYING THE COMMUNITY’S MESSAGE
TO EXTERNAL ACTORS
Every topic and issue raised throughout the documentation process is important and interconnected in
reality. However, the purpose of a protocol is not to provide every single detail known about the
community or generic descriptions of concerns or priorities. The protocol will be much more effective if it