Community participation

In recent years development work has shifted from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach. While sometimes this is rhetoric, there is also a recognition that participation (and preferably initiation) by the community is essential to an effective project.

This approach is more costly and time-consuming, but is also more cost-effective as it gives much better and longer-lasting results.

Participatory rural appraisal[edit | edit source]

Participatory rural appraisal is a term describing the incorporation of the knowledge and opinions of rural people in the planning and management of development projects and programs. Robert Chambers, a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (UK),^[1] has written on this topic, and it is described in the World Bank Participation Sourcebook.^[2]

The Institute of Development Studies explains that it builds on rapid rural appraisal (RRA),[1][2] and highlights five central additional concepts and three dangers and drawbacks.^[1] The five central additional concepts are

• Empowerment
• Respect
• Localization
• Enjoyment - the emphasis is no longer on being "rapid" but on the process.
• Inclusiveness

Dangers and drawbacks

• "Hijacking" - being used to create legitimacy for an external party.
• Formalism - an abrupt and exploitative approach is common where there is a deadline to meet.
• Disappointment - when expectations are raised and nothing tangible emerges.

See the Wikipedia article for more information and links.

See also Wikipedia:Participatory rural appraisal

Three caveats[edit | edit source]

Three warnings regarding participation:^[3]

• Participation is not a panacea, and does not suit every circumstance. The mother of a child dying of diarrhea does not want to "participate".
• Beware of manipulation - conscious or unconscious, e.g. when a "participatory social communicator" has preconceived ideas.
• Remember the opportunity cost - villagers do not have endless free time, and may be giving up time on productive work in order to participate.

Community power in Turkmenistan[edit | edit source]

In Turkmenistan's Karra Kum desert, one of the themes to emerge from early participatory video work was a strong local desire for electricity to improve people's lifestyles and enable them to stay in the desert. Participatory video is again being used as a tool for documenting the challenges and decision-making processes involved in the community-led installation of solar power within different shepherding villages. The solar panels are neither sold nor given to the communities; instead, villagers decided that each family should exchange one ewe and one female lamb for their solar lighting system - these animals become the collective property of the village and are used as a "community action fund"...^[4]

References[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

• How to fake a good process
• Deep-democracy

External links[edit | edit source]

• Wikipedia:Participation (decision making)
• Wikipedia:Orangi Pilot Project
• The World Bank Participation Sourcebook (archived web pages, via Archive.org)
• Communities Empowerment
• Spotting Community Ownership and Sorry but it's not YOUR project which contains a useful community participation ladder on how-matters.org
• Links & resources on working with community-based organizations on how-matters.org
• The Poor philanthropist: how and why the poor help each other, research monograph and tools to value in-kind contributions from community members
• Community action and the test of time: Learning from community experiences and perceptions, case studies of community mobilization and capacity building to benefit vulnerable children in Malawi and Zambia