Resources

The author narrates a personal journey to participation, through her work with local fisher communities in Tanzania, who were trying to stop dynamite and other illegal fishing methods. The use of video as a medium of communication empowered local villagers, giving them a means to forward their claims directly to those in authority. She describes the experience of lobbying the government at the national level, and how she stepped outside her role of NGO worker to accompany the villagers she had been working with to confront the Prime Minister. This act drew on an awareness that a facilitator is not neutral, and that commitment must be personal and political, not just that of professional duty. However, along the way, her journey has been fraught with personal risks as they confronted powerful local elites and opposed vested interests. She reflects on the need to change attitude and behaviour in institutions, and to put our own interests last, for participation and peoples' empowerment to go beyond rhetoric.

This article focuses on Participatory 3-D Modelling (P3-DM), a tool which merges Geographic Information System (GIS)-generated data and peoples' knowledge to produce a stand-alone relief model. P3-DM was used in the Philippines, by the National Integrated Protected Areas Programme (NIPAP), to give due weight to the interests of local communities in delineating protected area boundaries, identifying resource-use zones and formulating policies on protected area management. The model provides an efficient, user-friendly and relatively accurate spatial research, planning and management tool. Regular updating of the model allows for monitoring change and for integrating time into the system. By combining 3-D models with GIS, it is possible to implement (participatory) monitoring and evaluation over large areas. The article explores the process and the lessons learned.

This paper surveys public participation policies across a range of international institutions and environmental agreements to better understand whether opportunities exist for meaningful participation in international decisions that affect the environment. It examines the implementation of Principle 10 in the Rio Declaration, supported by the Aarhus convention which details measures countries must take to ensure that citizens have access to information, participation, and justice in decisions that affect the environment. It looks specifically on how Multilateral Development Banks, Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and trade regimes and regional economic bodies have lived up to these goals. Co-produced by WRIÆs (World Resources Institute) International Financial Flows and the Environment Program (IFFE) and The Access Initiative (TAI), the survey concludes that: Policies on public participation are quickly becoming the norm; Public participation at the national level is uniformly weak; domestic stakeholders have limited ability to influence international decisions that affect their environment; Institutions and agreements subject to the greatest public scrutiny have the most advanced public participation policy frameworks; A common methodology is needed to assess the implementation and practice of public participation. This analysis provides the reader with an overview of where multilateral institutions are contributing to the development of effective public participation, and the extent to which opportunities exist in domestic and international political spheres for affected parties and the interested public to incorporate sustainability concerns in multilateral decision-making processes.

This Practice Paper aims to contribute to ongoing reflections and debates taking place among aid practitioners about if, and how, big international NGOs (BINGOs) can be more effective agents of ‘progressive social change'.

It summarises a series of conversations that took place among seven members of the Institute of Development Studies Participation Power and Social Change team and staff from eight BINGOs between July 2008 and March 2009. During the conversations, participants considered how internal and external factors influence the potential of BINGOs to contribute to shifts in power relations; greater realisation of rights; and enhanced economic, political and social justice for poor and vulnerable people.

All of this was encapsulated in the term 'progressive social change'. At the end of the process, participants agreed that there is considerable scope for many BINGOs to pursue a more progressive agenda. They recommended that similar conversations need to continue and branch out, both in topical range and in participants in order to stimulate the kind of reflection and organisational learning required to do so.

This paper includes accounts of discussions, case studies shared by participants, inputs from academic critiques of BINGOs and practical tools to feed into such deliberations. It explores the types of changes that BINGOs are trying to achieve, the approaches they use - their models of change, and challenges and tensions commonly perceived to prevent BINGOs pursuing more radical social change agendas.

Provocative questions are raised as a means to help practitioners identify changes that their organisations need to make in order to more actively pursue social, economic and political justice. In some instances inspiring examples from BINGO participants suggest means to do so. References to organisational theory, meeting discussions and BINGO case studies are used to interrogate assumptions about how large complex organisations behave and to identify lessons that may be used to inform efforts to transform BINGOs into more effective agents of progressive social change.

'Voices of the Poor' is a series of three books that collates the experiences, views and aspirations of over 60,000 poor women and men. This second book of the series draws material from a 23-country comparative study, which used open-ended participatory methods, bringing together the voices and realities of 20,000 poor women, men, youth and children. Despite very different political, social and economic contexts, there are striking similarities in poor people's experiences. The common underlying theme is one of powerlessness, which consists of multiple and interlocking dimensions of illbeing or poverty. The book starts by describing the origins of the study, the methodology and some of the challenges faced. This is followed by an exploration of the multidimensional nature of wellbeing and illbeing. Most of the book comprises the core findings - the 10 dimensions of powerlessness and illbeing that emerge from the study - and is organised around these themes. These include livelihoods and assets; the places where poor people live and work; the body and related to this, accessing health services; gender roles and gender relations within the household; social exclusion; insecurity and related fears and anxieties; the behaviour and character of institutions; and poor people's ratings of the most important institutions in their lives. These dimensions are brought together into a many-stranded web of powerlessness, which is compounded by the lack of capability, including lack of information, education, skills and confidence. The final chapter is a call to action and dwells on the challenge of change.