RESEARCH PROFILE
	SOCIALLY OPTIMAL PROBLEM DIAGNOSIS Elders and youth have divergent perspectives on watershed problems and different aspirations, which are more easily expressed through age-disaggregated focus group discussions.

Use of the term "participatory" in watershed management discourse is a curious one, given how the watershed as a conceptual unit is in large part defined by flows of resources and environmental services to downstream and urban users. While the participation of off-site users is essential for improving water resource management at diverse scales, the approach under development within AHI aims to identify and build upon local motives for improved natural resource management beyond farm level within small upland catchments.

Yet participatory problem diagnosis becomes more challenging as one moves beyond farm-level diagnosis due to the diversity in "local" perspectives and the collective nature of causes and solutions at broader levels. Emphasis on the "local community" as a means to operationalize participation has come under scrutiny due to the uncritical assumption that communities are homogenous entities for which "one size fits all." Experience has shown that farmers have divergent resource endowments influencing their ability to innovate, different priorities influencing their desire to innovate in different areas, and different levels of political clout influencing their ability to gain access to resources (institutions, information, natural resources). In watersheds, such differences manifest themselves in a number of ways. Incentives to invest in improved management of any resource will differ according to an individual's: a) primary domains of activity, b) primary constraints on livelihood, and c) levels of access to the resource (benefits). The first of these is clearly seen in gendered domains of activity, where the importance of fuel wood and watering points to women is a clear reflection of traditional roles. The second is most apparent among those for whom their lesser social, economic or political status limits access to basic resources (i.e. water). The final issue becomes problematic when a resource that has a strong influence on livelihood is affected by land use practices throughout the watershed yet is unequally accessed (i.e. irrigation water). Here the distribution of costs and benefits of improved management are highly skewed.

These differences make a community-level interface (community-level diagnosis & planning, PRA) insufficient for capturing and addressing diverse interests, particularly given the tendency for outspoken or dominant individuals to co-opt "participatory" interactions. AHI has found that a series of three steps are required to ensure that diverse interests are captured: a) focus group discussions with diverse groups (by gender, age and wealth) to develop a robust list of watershed issues; b) ranking of identified issues with individuals, ensuring representation of relevant social parameters (gender, wealth, age, village, landscape position); and c) program- and community-level planning to ensure that diverse interests are clearly addressed in action plans. The first two steps ensure that diverse local opinions and priorities are systematically captured, while community or catchment-level planning events are useful for raising awareness on watershed problems, diversity in local opinions, and the need for collective action.

Participatory mapping has aided in the identification of watershed problems with highly visible spatial manifestations.

Tools for participatory problem diagnosis must enable local identification of constraints at multiple scales (farm, "neighborhoods," landscapes). In AHI, we found that the questions posed to farmers during participatory problem diagnosis had a direct impact on answers given. Triangulation of questions is therefore essential in capturing the full range of issues of concern to farmers at diverse scales. Questions should capture, minimally:

• farm-level productivity constraints,
• problems concerning the management of common property resources,
• negative effects of land management within one farm or village on neighboring farms/villages,
• sources of NRM conflict,
• NRM problems that would benefit more from collective than individual action, and
• livelihood impacts resulting from land use or landscape change.

Diagnostic activities must also remain free from rigid interpretations of watershed boundaries and processes. The wide range of questions utilized to target landscape-level NRM issues led to the identification of some problems with clear watershed dimensions and others without. The former include problems associated with water use, supply and quality (for irrigation, livestock and domestic use); flows of soil and water across the landscape (and its impact on seed, crops, fertilizer); and causal relationships between land use and soil/water outcomes. Issues that do not conform to watershed boundaries or processes include collective (higher-order) dimensions of pest, disease, weed and rodent management; negative trans-boundary impacts of certain crop and tree species; problems associated with the management of common property resources (grazing land, livestock, paths, community forests) or public property (protected areas, roads); and areas requiring collective action (marketing, input provision, rotational credit functions, conflict resolution). Clearly, a rigid definition of "watershed" would exclude many of these issues from consideration.