Resources

This Participate report draws on the experiences and views of people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation in 107 countries. It distils messages from 84 participatory research studies published in the last seven years.

A development framework post-2015 will have legitimacy if it responds to the needs of all citizens, in particular those who are most marginalised and face ongoing exclusion from development processes. The framework has to incorporate shared global challenges and have national level ownership if it is to support meaningful change in the lives of people living in poverty.

This article reports on a scoping study called Power in Community in which the author carried out Power Talks with community activists in the north of England.  She gives a comprehensive analysis of the meaning of power ranging from dominating power, to the power to co-operate, to empowerment.  She then concludes that these community activists were using non-dominating power: describing power as enabling others, sharing and listening with others.   The article argues that the evidence of practice on non-dominating power should be used to shift the debate from empowerment to transforming power.

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.

This handbook is for local level civil society practitioners who want to make services work better for the poor. It builds on current good practices which focus on strengthening local accountability in service provision and governance. Experience shows that accountability is a key issue in promoting more responsive and just service delivery. This handbook gives step-by-step guidance as to how civil society organisations and activists can help to improve local services by focusing on accountability.