Participatory development approach

The participatory development approach is an approach in which the people affected by a development activity take an active part in all its stages: need identification, planning, decision making, resource mobilisation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and operation and maintenance. It is a bottom-up approach, in contrast to the top-down approach in which plans are made by central authorities and imposed on people.

Principles and features

• People-centred: development is done with people, not for them.
• Felt needs: projects come from the community's own priorities.
• Use of local knowledge, labour and resources.
• Inclusion and equity: women, Dalits, poor, indigenous and disabled people are included.
• Transparency and accountability: public hearing, public audit, open accounts.
• Cost sharing in cash, labour or materials, building ownership.
• Empowerment: capacity building and leadership development of local people.
• Flexibility: learning by doing and adjusting plans.

Stages of participation

1. Identification of problems and needs (PRA, FGD, mapping)
2. Planning and design (with technical help from engineers)
3. Formation of users' committee and resource mobilisation
4. Implementation using local labour
5. Monitoring and public audit
6. Operation and maintenance by users
7. Evaluation and learning

Tools used

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

Examples from Nepal

• Community forestry: community forest user groups (CFUGs) protect and manage national forests handed over to them; forest cover has improved in the middle hills.
• Drinking water schemes: users' committees build gravity-flow water schemes with their labour and maintain them through user fees (e.g. the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Fund Development Board model).
• Farmer-managed irrigation systems (FMIS): farmers build and run canals themselves.
• Rural roads and trail bridges under the LEP approach.
• Micro-hydro owned and operated by communities.
• Ward-level planning: municipalities prepare annual plans through settlement- and ward-level meetings.

Advantages

• Projects match real needs; better use of funds
• Ownership and sustainability; better maintenance
• Lower cost; local employment
• Empowerment, social inclusion and transparency

Limitations

• Time consuming; slow decisions
• Elite capture and political influence
• Conflicts within the community
• Needs skilled facilitators

The participatory approach makes development sustainable because the people who benefit are also the ones who plan, build and care for it.