Resources

Indigenous people and local communities (ILSs) are struggling to defend their rights over land and other resources they have traditionally used and over traditional knowledge they have developed over generations.  They experience outsiders such as mining organisations being given rights without any reference to them, and receive few benefits from the commercial use of their crops or knowledge.  Two righs-based tools – community protocols (CPs) and free, prior informed consent (FPIC) are being used to help claim indigenous rights and negotiate agreements in various biodiversity contexts.  This issue of PLA draws on a range of experiences of using these tools, the lessons learnt and ways to maximise the benefits of their use. Some 17 articles are divided into five parts: setting the scene – research partnerships and ABS from the perspective of communities; institutional innovations for FPIC and benefit-sharing; community protocols for genetic resources and ABS; community protocols and FPIC – mining, protected areas and forest partnerships, and tips for trainers.

Participatory processes at the grassroots can have a powerful impact.  But what happens afterwards to the learning and knowledge generated? Are these experiences translated into wider organisational learning, and if so how – or why not? And what impact do they have on decision-making or strategic planning within INGOs?   This special issue of PLA explores how widely the impacts created from participatory processes spread from their original source. Following an initial overview, the 24 articles are divided into four parts: Part 1 looks at participatory communication practice and how the information is generated; Part 2 is about making sense of the dynamics of interpretation and use of participatory outputs; Part 3 is about learning in organisations and Part 4 explores structures, mechanisms and spaces.

The importance of community-based and participatory approaches to rural development in developing countries has long been emphasized.  This book demonstrates how rural people can best participate in development projects when they are collectively organized.  With the input of collaborators in the field, this book identifies the local social mechanisms that motivate and control people’s self-organizing activities.

This article describes the exploratory and preparatory phase of a research project designed to use co-operative enquiry as a method for transformative and participatory action research into relations between donors and recipients in two developing countries, Bolivia and Bangladesh. It describes the origins of the idea, the conceptual challenges that the authors faced in seeking funding, and what they learned from this first phase. The authors analyse why the researchers, as well as the potential subjects of the research, were uncomfortable with the proposed methodology, including the challenges arising from their own positions and the highly sensitive nature of the topic. They explain why they decided to abandon the project, and they reach some tentative conclusions concerning the options for participatory action learning and research in development practice.

Developed primarily for UNICEF staff and its partners, these field notes can be used to learn about specific aspects of Community Approaches to Total Sanitation (CATS) programmes in different contexts. For example, learning on CATS monitoring was captured in the Zambia and Mali cases, while the Philippines and Nepal have good experiences on strengthening sub-national governance for sanitation.

The Haiti and Mali cases meanwhile capture lessons on improving and maintaining CATS effectiveness (defined as the number of communities ‘triggered’ that went on to become open defecation free [ODF]). The issue of what happens beyond ODF certification is addressed in Mali and in the Philippines.

In addition, application of components of Social Norms Theory to strengthen CATS programming was also captured in some of the cases – notably in Nepal and Zambia. Experiences on implementing CATS after humanitarian crises can be learnt from the Philippines and Haiti. With regards to equity, Mali has experience in working to leave no community behind, while Nepal has developed a programme that resulted in mobilising support for the most vulnerable households.