Participatory approach, appropriate and labour intensive technology

Participatory approach

The participatory approach is a development approach in which the local people (beneficiaries) take part actively in all stages of a project: identifying needs, planning, decision making, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and operation and maintenance. It treats people as partners, not as passive receivers.

Key features:

• Bottom-up planning based on felt needs
• Local knowledge and resources are used
• Users' committees and community groups manage the work
• Transparency (public hearing, public audit)
• Cost sharing in cash, labour or materials
• Inclusion of women, poor and marginalised groups

Tools: Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), focus group discussion, social and resource mapping, transect walk, wealth ranking, seasonal calendar, Venn diagram.

Example: In Nepal, community forestry user groups manage local forests, and drinking water users' committees build and maintain village water schemes with their own labour.

Benefits: sense of ownership, better maintenance, lower cost, empowerment, transparency, project matches real needs.

Appropriate technology

Appropriate technology is technology that suits the local economic, social, cultural and environmental conditions. It is low-cost, small-scale, labour-intensive, simple to operate and repair, uses local materials and skills and is environmentally friendly (E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, 1973).

Examples: micro-hydro, biogas, improved cooking stoves, improved water mills, solar home systems, rainwater harvesting.

Importance for Nepal: suits remote areas, uses local resources, creates jobs, reduces imports and protects the environment.

Labour-intensive technology

Labour-intensive technology uses a large proportion of human labour and relatively little capital or machinery. (Closely related, labour-based technology uses labour as the main resource but adds light equipment where needed for quality.)

Examples: building rural roads, trails, irrigation canals and terraces by hand with local workers; hand-made paper (lokta) and handloom weaving.

Why suitable for Nepal:

• Abundant labour and scarce capital
• Creates local employment and income; reduces poverty
• Low import of machines and fuel; saves foreign currency
• Suits steep, roadless terrain
• Causes less environmental damage
• Builds local skills and ownership

Limitations: slower for large projects, needs good management, and quality control can be difficult.

The three ideas work together in Nepal's LEP (Labour-based, Environment-friendly, Participatory) approach for rural infrastructure.