Resources

This CD includes a guide to civil society engagement in advocacy on economic justice and poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP), which aims to support civil society organisations to build their capacity to engage with economic justice issues and the PRSP process in their country. The guide adopts the PRSP approach as a framework for identifying areas for civil society engagement in advancing economic justice. The first section provides a general orientation to the PRSP process and the entry-points for civil society participation. It also assesses the quality of participation in PRSP processes to date, and provides a critique of the PRSP approach in general. The second section provides a general introduction to Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs), examples of methodologies and tools used in PPA fieldwork, highlights PPA findings, and looks at how PPAs can be linked to policy and policy making. Section three looks at the concept, rationale for, and approaches to participatory public expenditure management. It also focuses on budgets, covering issues such as transparency and participation in the budget process and the role of civil society in the budget. Tools and methods of budget analysis and advocacy are provided, as well as examples of budget work carried out by civil society organisations in various developing countries. Participatory budgeting and gender budgets are also examined. Section four provides an overview of the issues involved in the participatory monitoring and evaluation of the PRSP, looks at public expenditure tracking to ensure the effective use of allocated public funds, and the use of citizen report cards for evaluating the provision of public services. Examples are also provided of PRSP monitoring and evaluation initiatives and approaches from various countries (e.g. Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique).

This 18 minute video texted in English in gives account of a GRUPAL (Working Group for Local Participation) Learning from Experience Self-Reflection workshop financed by IDS, where 25 young leaders from youth groups in Villa San Juan de Lurigancho and Villa El Salvador participated. The workshop is introduced with a brief presentation of GRUPAL and the partiticpants etting to know each other. Part one Participation and leadership works with identifying types of leaders, decision making processes and project implementation, through the visualisation exercise æpower flowerÆ examining powers within the youth groups. Through role leadership styles are analysed, and a short dramatisation of political campaigning is included. Part two Democracy, Citizenship and Organisation identifies democratic processes in the youth organisations with an exercise illustrating the importance of rules and leadership for group coordination in executing a task; and a role game, portraying different leadership styles and positive and negative attitudes in the dialogue between them are identify,ed. Part three focuses Advocacy looks at how to establish relationships with other actors, includes a debate exercise. The video is concluded with short poems on the topic creating compromise a summary of the workshop with lessons learned on democracy, transparence, dialogue and consensus to lead the participants in their work with the organisation and in their private lives. Finally a DIY video recorded by the participants in the workshop where they have interviewed each other on the issues of the workshop

The Access Initiative (TAI) has developed this interactive toolkit CD-ROM to stimulate national progress on the access to environmental decision-making. It provides over 100 indicators that civil society organizations can use to monitor government performance in implementing public participation in decisions that affect the environment. Twenty-five civil society organizations from nine countries pilot-tested the original methodology and helped TAI identify global standards for public participation and information. These universally applicable benchmarks help civil society coalitions identify ways that their countries can move toward compliance with global norms for access to information, participation and justice in environmental decision-making. The methodology specifically measures the following: comprehensiveness and quality of the general legal framework for access to information, participation, and justice; degree of available access to selected types of information about the environment; degree of public participation in decision-making processes in selected sectors by actors in the development process at various levels; the accessibility of justice, both redress and remedy; and comprehensiveness and quality of capacity building efforts to encourage informed and meaningful public participation. The CD-ROM includes an interactive database for recording research and a detailed "How-to" Guide that provides user-friendly instructions for all phases of the assessment, including assembling a coalition, launching a study, selecting cases and research methods, finalizing data, and using the findings to stimulate tangible results. Additional resources such as a glossary, Internet links, PDFs with TAC publications and other background information is also included.

This training manual is aimed at development workers with an interest in integrating theatre techniques into their working practices. It emerged through participatory research and training courses held with civil society organisations in Northeast Brazil and Peru. Three case studies of youth groups are presented to explore the ways theatre is being used in development and how these created and adapted new techniques. There follows some handy advice about how to plan a workshop and what the role of a facilitator should be, as well as a series of exercises divided into four sections: Beginnings, Conflict Resolution, Issue-based work and Evaluation. The manual is accompanied by a video made by young Brazilians, in which professionals talk about the role of theatre in their work, and techniques with diverse participant groups are demonstrated to give the viewer a sense of how the techniques work in practice.

This CD presents the D¨thchas project, which was a demonstration project funded under the EU LIFE 97 Environment Programme for the period January 1998-April 2001, with the aim of piloting an affordable, transferable process and framework for addressing sustainable development and integrated land management in peripheral rural areas of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. The work was carried out with the full involvement, support and co-operation of three Pilot Areas: North Sutherland, the Trotternish Peninsula in the Isle of Skye, and North Uist in the Western Isles, each home to between 1400 and 2000 people. D¨thchas involved each community in a highly participative process to create a strategy for the sustainable development of their area. Each Area Sustainability Strategy identifies the community vision, goals and objectives for the area and the practical actions needed to achieve these, now and in the medium and long term. The strategies were defined by the local people and agreed by the Agency Partners. Innovative Participatory Methods were developed and used for facilitating the involvement of local people and for bringing public and other agencies around the table to agree the way forward and relate this to their own plans and resources. The CD contains a stage-by-stage analysis of the D¨thchas project and examines its concepts strategies and outcomes. Additional features include: a 20 minute film introducing the project and the pilot themes; photographic albums; a quick find facility; and a range of reports, reviews, newsletters and publication which have been produced by the project. The contents of the CD can be found on http://www.duthchas.org.uk/