People and Participation
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Rapid changes are taking place in international development. The past two decades have promoted the ideals of participation and partnership, yet key decisions affecting people's lives continue to be made without sufficient attention to the socio-political realities of the countries in which they live. Embedded working traditions, vested interests and institutional inertia mean that old habits and cultures persist among the development community. On this premise, the authors of this book describe the need to recognise the complex, non-linear nature of development assistance and how bureaucratic procedures and power relations hinder poverty reduction in the new aid environment. The book begins with a conceptual and historical analysis of aid, exposing the challenges and opportunities facing aid professionals today. It argues for greater attention to accountability and the adoption of rights based approaches. In section two, practitioners, policymakers and researchers discuss the realities of power and relationships from their experiences across 16 countries. Their accounts, from government, donors and civil society, expose the highly politicised and dynamic aid environment in which they work. The book then explores ways forward for aid agencies, challenging existing political, institutional and personal ways of working. Breaking the barriers to ensure more inclusive aid will require visionary leadership and a courageous commitment to change. The authors show how translating rhetoric into practice relies on changing the attitudes and behaviours of individual actors. The book aims to present a contribution to the understanding of how development assistance and poverty reduction can be most effectively delivered by the professionals and agencies involved.
With the rapid growth in urban poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America, most cities now have 30 to 60 per cent of their population living in shanty towns. The civil and political rights of these people are often ignored or constantly contravened and they face multiple deprivations that arise from dangerous living conditions and inadequate services. None of these problems can be addressed without local changes, and this book contends that urban poverty is underpinned by the failure of national governments and aid agencies to support local processes. It makes the case for redirecting support to local organizations, whether governmental, non-governmental or grassroots. After an introduction from the authors, eight case studies portraying innovative initiatives from government and civil society: the shift from the Urban Community Development Office to the Community Organisation Development Institute in Thailand, by Boonyabancha; the Community Mortgage programme in the Philippines, by Porio et al.; the Mexican National Popular Housing Fund, by Connolly; the Local development Programme (PRODEL) in Nicaragua, by Stein; the work of the Anjuman Samanji Behood in Faisalabad, Pakistan, by Alimuddin et al.; the Municipal Programme for the Reform and Extension of Homes, Casa Melhor/PAAC Cearah Periferia, Brazil, by Cavalcanti et al.; the work of the South African Homeless PeopleÆs Federation, by Baumann et al.; and the Alliance of SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milani, by Patel and Mitlin. The book is concluded with two chapters by the editors on addressing deprivations in urban areas and the role of local and extra-local organisations.
In this book, development and other social policy scholars and practitioners seek to address simplistic criticisms of participation, while addressing key problems of power and politics. The authors describe and analyse new experiments in participation from a wide diversity of social contexts that show how participation can, given certain conditions, be linked to genuinely transformative processes and outcomes for marginalised communities and people. The book looks at links between participatory development and participatory governance, and spans the range of institutional actors involved in these approaches including the state, civil society and donor agencies. The book places participatory interventions in political contexts, and links them to issues of popular agency and development theory. The book is grouped under six main themes: from tyranny to transformation?; rethinking participation; participation as popular agency: reconnecting with underlying processes of development; realizing transformative participation in practice: state and civil responses; donors and participation: caught between tyranny and transformation; and broader perspectives on from tyranny to transformation. Chapters include "Towards participation as transformation: critical themes and challenges" by Sam Hickey and Giles Mohan; "Towards participatory governance: assessing the transformative possibilities" by John Gaventa; "Rules of thumb for participatory change agents" by Bill Cooke; "Relocating participation within a radical politics of development: critical modernism and citizenship" by Giles Mohan and Sam Hickey; "Spaces for transformation? Reflections on issues of power and difference in participation in development" by Andrea Cornwall; "Towards a repoliticization of participatory development: political capabilities and spaces of empowerment" by Glyn Williams; "Participation, resistance and problems with the local in Peru: towards a new political contract?" by Susan Vincent; "The transformative unfolding of tyrannical participation: the corvÚe tradition and ongoing local politics in Western Nepal" by Katsuhiko Masaki; "Morality, citizenship and participatory development in an indigenous development association: the case of GPSDO and the Sebat Bet Gurage of Ethiopia" by Leroi Henry; "Relocating participation within a radical politics of development: insights from political action and practice" by Sam Hickey and Giles Mohan; "Securing voice and transforming practice in local government: the role of federating in grassroots development" by Diana Mitlin; "Participatory municipal development plans in Brazil: divergent partners constructing common futures" by Glauco Regis Florisbelo and Irene Guijit; "Confrontations with power: moving beyond the tyranny of safety in participation" by Ute Kelly; "Falling forward: going beyond PRA and imposed forms of participation" by Mark Waddington and Giles Mohan; "Participation in poverty reduction strategies: democracy strengthened or democracy undermined?" by David Brown; "Beyond the technical fix? Participation in donor approaches to rights-based development" by Jeremy Holland, Mary Ann Brocklesby and Charles Aburge; "The social embeddedness of agency and decision-making" by Frances Cleaver; and "Theorizing participation and institutional change: ethnography and political economy" by Anthony Bebbington.
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This handbook provides a guide to understanding and using reflective and experiential learning – whether it be for personal or professional development, or as a tool for learning. It both places reflective and experiential learning within an overall theoretical framework, and provides practical ideas for applying the models of learning as well as offering tools, ideas and resources that can be incorporated into classroom practice.
The Listening to People Living in Poverty Study was undertaken by ActionAid Nepal in order to break away from traditional poverty analysis. It aimed to be an in-depth, wide-ranging investigation of all the details that are usually omitted from reports, and to document poverty from the eyes of poor men and women themselves. The study produced a number of outputs, one of which was the Nepal Country study which is divided into two volumes. This first volume is a collection of poor people’s stories: over 60 in total covering 10 districts across Nepal.
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This report presents the background and rationale for the IIED-IDS action research on institutionalising participatory approaches and people-centred processes in natural resource management. The methodologies used in the different case studies (India, Indonesia, Senegal, Mexico and other settings) are then introduced, along with the complementary studies undertaken in this collaborative research programme.
The last section of this report contains highlights of all the publications in the Institutionalising Participation Series, and a summary of each.
While there is general acceptance about the need for peopleÆs participation in development, there is a wide spectrum of views on the concept of participation and the ways of achieving it. This book is primarily focused on the question of how to achieve participation. It does this by providing examples from experience, material for use, and the space for innovations. The book is divided into five chapters. The first deals with the concept of participation and explores its multiple dimensions. It also considers the concept of PRA and its origin, principles, and applications. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 deal with methods of PRA that are related to space, time, and relationship respectively. The methods which are presented in each chapter are illustrated by a number of examples and straightforward steps. Each method is explained with an introduction, suggestions for application, examples, an overview of the process outlining the steps, the time and material required, its advantages and limitations. The final chapter provides a summary of PRA and recaps on ground the book has covered.
This manual aims to cover a wide range of development issues, including participatory poverty alleviation, micro and macro development, the role of the change agent, the use of participatory techniques in HIV/AIDS programming, and understanding childrens' perspectives. It is designed as a practical guide for NGO and government personnel and includes many examples from the field.
ParticipationÆ may have become the buzzword of the 1990s, but the pathways of current enthusiasm for participatory methods stretch back over decades. The most popularly recognized and widely used participatory approach, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) had its genesis in the late 1980s. Since then, it has come to be used in countless communities, in dozens of countries and in a huge variety of contexts. Once a marginal practice, it has now become an instrument used by the most powerful of global development institutions. This book offers a perspective on PRA. In it, thirty-two practitioners from twenty countries reflect critically on what PRA has come to mean to them, and draw on the wealth of their experiences as NGO workers, donors, activists and trainers to explore some of the lessons the past might offer future participatory practice. Embracing a range of entry points and experiences, past and future, challenges and opportunities, the stories include moments of frustration and revelation, of dilemmas and discoveries; together, their accounts speak of and about the variety of practices that have come to be called æPRAÆ.
A facilitator helps groups of people to enable them to interact more effectively in a wide range of situations and occupations, including workplaces, organisational planning, leisure and health activities and community development. It is an emerging and exciting profession. This book is a toolkit for both new and experiences facilitators, managers, consultants, staff developers, innovators, social and community workers and students. It covers a broad range of practical and innovative techniques from around the world including: designing workshops; dealing with difficult situations; uses of music, storytelling, visual techniques and outdoor learning; processes for community participation and techniques for evaluation.