Resources

This research report is borne out of CDRN and CAREÆs attempts to strengthen their support to civil society organisations in Uganda. The report takes the widely held belief that the needs and interests of poorer people are directly or indirectly represented through community-based organisations, and that working with CBOs is therefore a route to poverty reduction as its starting point. As more and more initiatives, both government and NGO-led, attempt to use this channel to reach the poor, the research examines the validity of this assumption. The report concludes by suggesting that the assumption: æfind the groups and you have found the poorÆ is only partially correct. It might be more accurate to assume that æin some kinds of groups, you will find some kinds of poor people.Æ
The report is structured into six main sections: introduction; an overview of the research sites, groups and external perspectives on group formation; the strengths and weaknesses of groups in representing the poor; exploring the relationship between a group and external groups/ institutions; an exploration of where the poorer members of a community are if they are not in groups; and conclusions and recommendations.

Naming the Moment is a participatory method of identifying and analysing issues in order to decide how to act on them. It began in 1986 and is based on popular education techniques, particularly those of Paulo Friere. It has spread and adapted to local circumstances and has been used for community analysis, coalition building, anti-racist change, organisational development and strategic planning. This article looks at the dimensions of the approach, the four interlocking phases that make it up and goes on to give some examples of it's use.

This pack contains four documents drawing together the themes of gender and participation. It has also been translated into Arabic. The documents are as follows: (1) Gender and Participation - Overview Report (Supriya Akerkar) 31 pp. This report looks at convergences between approaches to gender and to participation, how these have been played out, and how they have been or could be constructively integrated into projects, programmes, policies and institutions. (2) Report Summary 4 pp (3) Gender and Participation - Support Resources Collection (Emma Bell and Paola Brambilla) 43 pp. This includes summaries of key resources, practical examples of approaches from around the world, examples of what tools used in participatory development can achieve and networking and contact details of relevant organisations. (4) Development and Gender In Brief - Gender and Participation (Issue 9)

This video briefly describes a process undertaken by a community group on Northern Ireland to obtain a community centre. Through interviews with local people, it shows the need for a community centre (01-03), the process of building contacts between the community group and other agencies (04), consulting local people about what they want (05 -08) and getting people involved in the process (09).

The introductory section of this brief paper discusses the importance of developing an evaluation methodology that is practical and flexible enough to be carried out by the community in the Peoples Participation Programme of the FAO. Uphoff reiterates that in fact the answers arrived at by the evaluation are in themselves not as important as what is learnt from the process of reaching consensus on such answers. An illustration of what the methodology utilised actually constituted is described in the first section of the paper. In the second section, however, the potential benefits of the methodology are discussed and these are categorised as being; i) that the process is self educative ii) the process is self improving iii) the process allows members of the programme to monitor progress and iv) it has the potential to improve training. Each of these potential benefits are discussed in some detail. The third section of the paper outlines a process for introducing the system in a rural setting in a number of steps. The last section, however, concludes by discussing a variety of issues related to the process of participatory self evaluation including problems of objectivity, comparability of numbers and use of appropriate language. Attached to the end of the document is an extensive section that includes an inventory of questions for group self evaluation and a list of questions for self evaluation. (Shorter version published in Community Development Journal Vol 26 No 4 [1991])

Participatory appraisal was used by members of a local health forum to involve users in the design of a new health centre in Pollards Hill, as part of an effort to engage local people in addressing wellbeing challenges in the area. This article describes the process, elaborating on the methods used and the outputs of the participatory appraisal. The participatory appraisal enabled local people to be involved in the design planning of the health centre, as well as to name, reflect on and analyse health service delivery and wellbeing issues in the community. Engaging local people in determining the design of new services and improving existing services spares the authorities complaints. More importantly, it allows authorities to benefit from local knowledge - about what works and what hasn't, about where the gaps in provision lie, about solutions residents know of and about needs as residents themselves see them.

This guide aims to enable activists, trainers and other involved in development and democracy to promote citizen participation and to democratize decision-making. Drawing on experiences of NGOs from numerous countries, the document contains concepts, tools and step-by-step processes aimed at promoting citizen advocacy. It aims to help activists, practitioners and planners to work with civil society in a way that promotes political change, develops solutions to development problems and policies, creates strong and lasting links and transforms power relations, including gender dynamics.