Title People_ participatory approach.pdf ✅

People’s Participatory Approach People’s participatory approach to development is a new thought than top-down approaches, structural changes approach and basic need approaches to development. These approaches were not successful to reduce the poverty of UDCs. This divided the society into urban and rural infrastructure. The development model which was prepared before the decades of 1970s were not able to involve people in the development initiatives. These seemed to be less democratic in the decision-making process. Thus the peoples were poor due to the direct control by the central plan. The poor people were seen as excluded and marginalized both from societal participation and also from direct involvement in the development initiatives. After the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, it was thought that people’s participatory approaches were only the alternative to the top-down approach of the development process in UDCs. Since the early 1990s, the major donor development agencies have put their weight behind and committed resources to promote participatory development, recognizing the problem caused by non-participatory development. Thus it was the decades of a breakdown of top-down and also the non-participatory practice in development policies. Meanings of peoples’ participation People participation indicates the involvement of local people in development activities particularly in developing economies. The term participation includes a wide range of forms of working with local people. The approach implies a two-way exchange of experience and knowledge in a partnership between local people and government or development agencies or related professionals. Participatory approaches to development have been receiving growing national and international support in a number of developing countries of Asia Africa and Latin America by national and international agencies. The different donor agencies, both bilateral and multinational have also strongly embraced the participatory approach, particularly in natural resource management. There has been a range of interpretations of the meaning of participation in development since the late 1970s decades. The following are some of the examples-
With regards to the rural development approach, “participation includes people’s involvement in the decision-making process, in implementing programmes with their sharing in the benefits of development programmes and their involvement in effects to evaluate such programmes.” (Cohen and Uphoff, 1977). Participation is concerned with, “the organized efforts to increase control over resources and regulative institution in given social situation on the part of groups and movements of these hitherto exclude from such control.” (Pears and Stified,1979). Community participation is an active process by which beneficiaries or client groups influence the direction and execution of development projects with a view of enhancing their well-being in terms of income, personal growth, self-reliance or other values they cherish” (Paul, 1987). Participation can be seen as a process of empowerment of the deprived and the excluded people. Participation in this sense (Ghai, 1990). This view is based on the recognition of differences in political and economic power among different social groups and classes. Participatory development stands for partnership which is built upon the basis of dialogue among the various actors during which the agenda is jointly set and local views and indigenous knowledge are deliberately sought and respected. This implies negotiation rather than the dominance of an extremely set project agenda. Thus people become actors instead of being beneficiaries (OECD, 1994). Participation is a process through which stakeholder’s influence and share control over development initiatives and the decision and resources which affected them (World Bank, 1994). The above interpretation reflects that there is no universal definition of participation in all development projects. Of course, the interpretation identifies the key stages of the project cycle in which participation could occur problem identification, plan formulation, plan implementation, monitoring, evaluation and profit-sharing. Thus, steps of people’s participation are problem identification-→plan formulation- →plan implementation-→monitoring-→evaluation-→profit sharing.
Participatory Development (PD) can be interpreted in two broad and distinct areas- The Participatory as a Means PD is a process whereby local people cooperate or collaborate with extremely introduced development programmes or projects. In this sense, participation becomes the means where such initiatives can be more effectively implemented. This approach is widely used in programmes extremely designed in a participatory manner. This approach would appear to be quite widespread and essentially promotes participation as a means of ensuring the successful outcomes of the activities undertaken. The Participation as an End Participation is seen as a goal in itself. This goal can be expressed as the empowerment of people in terms of their acquiring the skills, knowledge and experience to take greater responsibility for their development. Thus participation is an instrument of change and it can help to break that exclusion and to provide poor people with the basis for their more direct involvement in development initiatives. Social Movement Perspective (SMP) and Institutional Stage of Participatory Development (ISPD) Projects- From the institutional perspective, there are four stages of development projects The Research Stage: development plan is accurately defined. All involved in this progrmmes. It includes all previous experiences, individual and community knowledge and attitudes existing policies and other relevant other socio-economic conditions, culture, spiritually gender. Design Stage: It defines the actual activities. It secures ownership and community involvement. Implementation Stage: In this stage planned intervention is implemented. Participation in this stage increase commitment, relevance and sustainability. Evaluation Stage: for a meaningful evaluation, indicators and measurement should be defined in a participatory process at the very beginning of the initiative involving all relevant stakeholders. People’s Participation in Development is concerned with two things. Structural changes and developing peoples capacity and skills to negotiate and to seek the resources and changes which they require in order to improve their lives
and the method and techniques whereby local people can be brought to play a part and to develop of stake in development projects and programmes. Thus the first point seeks to secure a long term and sustainable development for poor people and the second is crucial in providing immediate access to the benefits of development may be explained below- Benefits of people’s participation PD can increase the efficiency of development activities by involving local resources and skills and making better use of expensive external costs. It can also increase the effectiveness of such activities by ensuring that with people’s involvement, they are based upon the local knowledge and understanding of problems and will therefore be more relevant to local needs. Participation helps to build local capacity and develop the abilities of local people to manage and negotiate development activities. Participation can increase coverage when local people are able to assume some of the burdens of responsibility and thus help to extend the range of activities of development activities. Participation can lead to better targeting of benefits to the poorest via the identification of key stakeholders who will be most affected by the activities. PD can help to secure the sustainability of the activities as beneficiaries assume ownership and are willing to maintain its momentum; and Participation can often help to improve the status of women by providing the opportunity for them to play a part in development. The Human Development Approach (HDA) represents a simple yet powerful idea Putting people at the centre of development. It is about enlarging people’s choices and freedoms to live a long and healthy life, have access to knowledge and a decent standard of living, and participate in communities with dignity and self-respect.