Open Gates : Richard Ford

"Listening to the People: Development as If People Mattered"
April 12, 2011

Richard Ford, Ph.D. Research Professor of International Development and Social Change at Clark University, has 40 years field experience in rural African land use and management. His writings focus on community institutions, integration of traditional practices into contemporary decision-making and policy, poverty alleviation, conflict mediation, and community-based planning. He has worked in 25 African countries (especially Kenya, Somalia, Somaliland, Ghana, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Senegal, Mali, The Gambia, Malawi, Zambia, Madagascar, and Rwanda) on these themes. More recently, he has conducted field research and training in India, The Philippines, Romania, Iraq, Bangladesh, and the South Pacific. In 1988, working jointly with colleagues from Clark and Kenya's National Environment Secretariat, he adapted the Rapid Rural Appraisal to be responsive to community priorities and needs. This was the beginning of PRA. Since that time, PRA has spread to many thousands of agencies in Africa and elsewhere.

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Education

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• Worcester Academy
• Open Gates