Thirty participants from ActionAid International-The Gambia and partner organisations are out in the field visiting various communities in the Central River, Upper River and North Bank regions to collect data about the work of ActionAid in their communities.

According to a press release from ActionAid International, The Gambia, the programme known as the PRRP is an annual process undertaken by Action Aid International- The Gambia (AAITG) to review programme implementation covering its areas of work in the country. The PRRP provides the space for sufficient interaction between the various stakeholders for deeper reflections on programme performance and its impact on the poor. The information gathered during the process will inform the agency's next programming and planning cycle.

This year's programme comes at the end of the agency's third Country Strategy Paper, CSPIII and a new one being developed for the next five years.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Dr. Kuje Manneh, the executive director of ActionAid, emphasised the importance of this year's PRRP as it also comes just as ActionAid International-The Gambia prepares for an affiliation review in February this year.

The results from the affiliate review will determine whether ActionAid International The Gambia meets the criteria for full membership to the global ActionAid Federation. "This is really an opportunity for us tocritically review our work, look at our gaps and see how best we can re-chart the way forward," she said.

Lamin Baro, the head of Sponsorship, spoke about the space provided by the PRRP for communities to confidently express their views about our work and to see how far we have gone with our human rights based approach to development. He noted that it was our duty to hold ourselves accountable having made heavy investments in these communities in 2012.

Over the coming days, staff and partners will visit seed and cereal banks, vegetable cooperatives, early childhood development programmes, poultry farmers, Brikama-ba community radio, CREST circles, amongst others. The findings from these field visits will inform ActionAid's next programming cycle and will feed into the annual reporting and the annual plan and budget processes.