What is Participatory Development?
The rising popularity of community-based, participatory development approaches can loosely be linked to the gradual fall of the Washington Consensus during the previous decade. The Washington Consensus refers to the prescription of policies advocated during the 1990s for crisis-wridden developing countries, policies which included macroeconomic stabilization, economic opening with respect to both trade and investment, and the expansion of market forces within the domestic economy (12).
The Washington Consensus has been criticized by some in the development community for failing to focus on the simple, everyday needs of people. To fill this gap, participatory, community-based approaches to development have were suggested as ways of putting the development agenda back in the hands of ordinary people (8).
Participatory development projects seek to put the poor at the center of the analysis, aiming to meet their needs in ways that aren't dominated by academic theories or industries.Participatory programs are people-centered, and use methods tailored to local characteristics such as class, gender, or historical cultural tensions. The idea is to link local perspectives into the highest levels of policy design, bringing in partnerships between the public and private sectors when possible (8). These programs start with identifying how poor people's options and constraints can be best understood, utilizing a wider view of poverty than conventional income-based approaches which recognizes the poor's rights to access resources, reduce their risk, exercise voice, build their own livelihoods. In essence, participatory, community-based programs view the poor not as invalid, but as decision-makers capable of contributing to solving their own problems (9).
If I found anything to be true during my time in Uganda, it is that the villagers of Nnindye know as much about local agriculture and the land as any expert. Participatory programs seek to tap into local knowledge to improve livelihoods. Locals are the real experts on the economic, environmental, or cultural forces affecting their decisions. That's something that should be used in a productive way!
Thus, participatory programs are based on constructivist, not positivist, principles. Postivist methodologies underlie rigorous scientific research and the scientific method. The hypothesis is stated at the outset of the experiment, and great pains are taken to create a controlled environment to assess causal variables of scientific phenomena. Constructivist principles, in contrast, embrace uncertainty, allowing the questions, solutions, and even subject matter of a project to be defined through a fluid dialogue between program directors and local populations. There is continuous interplay between the results of the program and the program's initiatives; it's not a scientific process to evaluate the effectiveness of specific development programs, but a holistic relationship between researchers and community members designed to produce real, sustainable results. Changes and experimentation are expected as the program receives feedback from the community about what goals it can be focusing on (13).
Participatory approaches to development involve local communities in several areas
Defining the Challenges Facing Local Communities
Academic researchers and employees of international NGOs like the UN can bring knowledge of barriers to economic development or of environmental hazards to a community, but in a practical sense this “knowledge” is very hard to translate into successful programs. At the outset of a participatory approach, it is important for “expert” researchers to not dictate the goals of the program. Usually, a series of community-level meetings are set up with help from program organizers where community members have the opportunity to hear from researchers about some of the challenges facing the community, and eventually participate in prioritizing the projects they would like to see in their community (11). This is exactly the approach UPFORD took in Nnindye. After conducting a baseline survey, UPFORD researchers sought the help of several trusted villagers to establish these community dialogues. Although Notre Dame had conducted a baseline assessment designed to help researchers understand the challenges facing Nnindye in 2008, this knowledge was presented in an accessible way to villagers so that they could understand how their particular difficulties fit into the overall community outlook. During this first stage of a participatory, community-based program, it is imperative that the community begins taking ownership over the project.
Planning Solutions
After the community understands, in a broad way, the challenges a development program might seek to address, it is time to plan specific ways of overcoming them. In many cases, researchers or development workers coordinating the project use the input given by the community in the first stage of meetings to present a series of potential solutions to the problem. For example, researchers coordinating a participatory project seeking to deal with air contamination could propose a variety of measures for evaluating contamination levels, as well as the under-lying conditions that could make a household more vulnerable to contamination, such as moisture, debris, or poor ventilation. Next would come recommendations for how to collect data about air contamination in the community and eventually to reduce contamination levels. In the case of UPFORD, researchers from Notre Dame and Uganda Martyrs university proposed various projects in the areas of agriculture, education, water management, heatlh, and leadership development that could solve the issues raised by villagers at the first community dialogues. These projects were presented to trusted village leaders, who help meetings with villagers from their respective parts of Nnindye. Over the course of an entire year, the UPFORD program determined which projects would receive the green light.
It is important to note that in this part of the process, researchers have an active role in presenting possible solutions to villagers. This introduces a possible way for researchers to dictate the goals of the proram. Therefore, researchers have to be involved in an active partnership with villagers, legitimitely using the stated concerns of villagers to propose various alternatives, and even inviting village leaders to participate in proposing solutions. An ideal participatory program gives every villager a voice in proposing solutions. Thus, every participatory program strikes a balance between allowing researchers to propose solutions and allowing villagers to propose solutions in a grassroots, crowd-sourced fashion (11).
Implementing Solutions
The final step is implementation. A participatory, community-based program relies on local villagers to be the main contributors to overcoming their development challenges. This is what it means to be a sustainable program. Researchers and NGOs put the structures in place, but villagers have the ultimate responsibility to make programs work. In UPFORD's case, Nnindye villagers farm the community gardens and serve on the Village Health Team. Savings groups operating out of the community gardens are completely staffed by local villagers, although field agents employed by Catholic Relief Services do help train the groups for their first six-month cycle. The ultimate goal of every participatory, community-based program is that the structures put in place can be self-sustaining once villagers have acquired the leadership skills necessary to run their own programs (10).
Building Social Capital
A participatory program must focus not only on building capacity at the local level, but linking this local capacity to higher levels of local governance. Recent discussions of social capital have emphasized the importance of building political voice on the local level to counteract the political clout of other competing interests. Social capital is most effective when synergistic relationships exist between the local level and the government (26). A participatory program can build these bridges, turning the attention of government officials to enable villagers to....help themselves!
The Washington Consensus has been criticized by some in the development community for failing to focus on the simple, everyday needs of people. To fill this gap, participatory, community-based approaches to development have were suggested as ways of putting the development agenda back in the hands of ordinary people (8).
Participatory development projects seek to put the poor at the center of the analysis, aiming to meet their needs in ways that aren't dominated by academic theories or industries.Participatory programs are people-centered, and use methods tailored to local characteristics such as class, gender, or historical cultural tensions. The idea is to link local perspectives into the highest levels of policy design, bringing in partnerships between the public and private sectors when possible (8). These programs start with identifying how poor people's options and constraints can be best understood, utilizing a wider view of poverty than conventional income-based approaches which recognizes the poor's rights to access resources, reduce their risk, exercise voice, build their own livelihoods. In essence, participatory, community-based programs view the poor not as invalid, but as decision-makers capable of contributing to solving their own problems (9).
If I found anything to be true during my time in Uganda, it is that the villagers of Nnindye know as much about local agriculture and the land as any expert. Participatory programs seek to tap into local knowledge to improve livelihoods. Locals are the real experts on the economic, environmental, or cultural forces affecting their decisions. That's something that should be used in a productive way!
Thus, participatory programs are based on constructivist, not positivist, principles. Postivist methodologies underlie rigorous scientific research and the scientific method. The hypothesis is stated at the outset of the experiment, and great pains are taken to create a controlled environment to assess causal variables of scientific phenomena. Constructivist principles, in contrast, embrace uncertainty, allowing the questions, solutions, and even subject matter of a project to be defined through a fluid dialogue between program directors and local populations. There is continuous interplay between the results of the program and the program's initiatives; it's not a scientific process to evaluate the effectiveness of specific development programs, but a holistic relationship between researchers and community members designed to produce real, sustainable results. Changes and experimentation are expected as the program receives feedback from the community about what goals it can be focusing on (13).
Participatory approaches to development involve local communities in several areas
Defining the Challenges Facing Local Communities
Academic researchers and employees of international NGOs like the UN can bring knowledge of barriers to economic development or of environmental hazards to a community, but in a practical sense this “knowledge” is very hard to translate into successful programs. At the outset of a participatory approach, it is important for “expert” researchers to not dictate the goals of the program. Usually, a series of community-level meetings are set up with help from program organizers where community members have the opportunity to hear from researchers about some of the challenges facing the community, and eventually participate in prioritizing the projects they would like to see in their community (11). This is exactly the approach UPFORD took in Nnindye. After conducting a baseline survey, UPFORD researchers sought the help of several trusted villagers to establish these community dialogues. Although Notre Dame had conducted a baseline assessment designed to help researchers understand the challenges facing Nnindye in 2008, this knowledge was presented in an accessible way to villagers so that they could understand how their particular difficulties fit into the overall community outlook. During this first stage of a participatory, community-based program, it is imperative that the community begins taking ownership over the project.
Planning Solutions
After the community understands, in a broad way, the challenges a development program might seek to address, it is time to plan specific ways of overcoming them. In many cases, researchers or development workers coordinating the project use the input given by the community in the first stage of meetings to present a series of potential solutions to the problem. For example, researchers coordinating a participatory project seeking to deal with air contamination could propose a variety of measures for evaluating contamination levels, as well as the under-lying conditions that could make a household more vulnerable to contamination, such as moisture, debris, or poor ventilation. Next would come recommendations for how to collect data about air contamination in the community and eventually to reduce contamination levels. In the case of UPFORD, researchers from Notre Dame and Uganda Martyrs university proposed various projects in the areas of agriculture, education, water management, heatlh, and leadership development that could solve the issues raised by villagers at the first community dialogues. These projects were presented to trusted village leaders, who help meetings with villagers from their respective parts of Nnindye. Over the course of an entire year, the UPFORD program determined which projects would receive the green light.
It is important to note that in this part of the process, researchers have an active role in presenting possible solutions to villagers. This introduces a possible way for researchers to dictate the goals of the proram. Therefore, researchers have to be involved in an active partnership with villagers, legitimitely using the stated concerns of villagers to propose various alternatives, and even inviting village leaders to participate in proposing solutions. An ideal participatory program gives every villager a voice in proposing solutions. Thus, every participatory program strikes a balance between allowing researchers to propose solutions and allowing villagers to propose solutions in a grassroots, crowd-sourced fashion (11).
Implementing Solutions
The final step is implementation. A participatory, community-based program relies on local villagers to be the main contributors to overcoming their development challenges. This is what it means to be a sustainable program. Researchers and NGOs put the structures in place, but villagers have the ultimate responsibility to make programs work. In UPFORD's case, Nnindye villagers farm the community gardens and serve on the Village Health Team. Savings groups operating out of the community gardens are completely staffed by local villagers, although field agents employed by Catholic Relief Services do help train the groups for their first six-month cycle. The ultimate goal of every participatory, community-based program is that the structures put in place can be self-sustaining once villagers have acquired the leadership skills necessary to run their own programs (10).
Building Social Capital
A participatory program must focus not only on building capacity at the local level, but linking this local capacity to higher levels of local governance. Recent discussions of social capital have emphasized the importance of building political voice on the local level to counteract the political clout of other competing interests. Social capital is most effective when synergistic relationships exist between the local level and the government (26). A participatory program can build these bridges, turning the attention of government officials to enable villagers to....help themselves!