participatory rural development planning: insights from shahdad district

Purpose: this paper presents the lessons learned from applying participatory planning approaches in the preparation of village-level development plans for the carbon sequestration project pilot areas in 33 pilot villages in the shahdad district of kerman.methods: rapid rural appraisal (rra) and participatory rural appraisal (pra) techniques were employed to map local resources and priorities.results: the findings from the participatory process were validated by analysing existing development documents at both local and regional levels.conclusion: the results reveal that the priority programs and projects identified through participatory assessment techniques were, in some cases, not fully aligned with the programs of neighbouring villages or the regional development orientation. our findings suggest that aligning the outcomes of the participatory assessment process with district-level documents can be a practical solution for integrated participatory-level planning (vlp) development.