Difference between revisions of "Participatory Facilitation"

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Introducing Participatory Methodologies (Facilitation)

This text is copied from: Participatory Methodology Facilitation Guide

1. What are participatory methods?

You could just as well ask, “What is a developmental process?” Is it something a government or development organisation does for a community, or is it something a government or development organisation does to assist a community to make informed choices and actions in order to improve the livelihoods of the community members? Too often governments have made the error of imposing development solutions on communities. Regardless of their good intentions, external agents cannot possibly understand all local community issues, cultural considerations and conditions, resulting in the implementation of ‘solutions’ that are all too often inappropriate and unacceptable to the community. As a result, these top-down solutions are not sustainable. Participatory methodologies have been developed in response to these sustainability problems and involve the use of processes and tools that allow external agents such as governments and development organisations to work with communities to arrive at sustainable and acceptable solutions to development problems.

Participatory methodologies recognise that people within communities are best placed to make decisions that affect their lives. Participatory approaches inherently believe in and build on the skills, knowledge, experience and culture of community groupings, in order to engage them in designing and implementing their own development goals.

This said, it must be noted that participatory methods are only part of a broader development process. A participatory development process must include a full commitment to:

- Processes in which people with a legitimate interest (stakeholders) influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources that affect them. In other words:

~ Involvement of stakeholders in all phases of a development project cycle.

~ Promotion of the role of civil society in the development process.

~ Use of participatory methodologies to help ensure real and meaningful participation by all, especially including those who may be illiterate.

~ A full commitment by all to allow real stakeholder participation to become a part of any normal development process.

2. Why use participatory methodologies?

Participatory methodologies have gained considerable support from donors, governments and practitioners around the world since the 1980s. These approaches emerged and gained popularity as alternatives to the ‘blueprint’ approach to top-down development employed by many extension agents, international agencies and research institutions. Participatory methodologies have subsequently been developed and refined for different purposes. Some are focused broadly, like PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) while others have been designed for a specific sector, like PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation) in the water supply and environmental sanitation sector.

The reason for the increasing popularity of participatory methodologies is the recognition that development projects utilising participatory methodologies are more sustainable over the long term. Community ‘ownership’ of projects is greatly enhanced when people at local level meaningfully assess their problems, design interventions to address these problems, implement their strategies and manage their interventions over time.

Real participation empowers and mobilises people as actors and overseers of their own development. The benefits extend well beyond the single development initiative. People participating in such processes develop critical skills and experience. The spin-offs of this are improved self-development processes, improved local economic development and therefore more sustainable communities and societies.

Participatory approaches help to encourage the participation of individuals in group-processes, no matter their age, sex, social class or educational background. The methodologies are particularly useful for encouraging the participation of women in male dominated societies.

Participation can:

- Improve project design by:

~ Giving more accurate data on environmental, social and cultural issues.

~ Giving better understanding of stakeholders’ felt needs and priorities.

- Help resolve / manage conflict by:

~ Identifying common ground. ~ Finding solutions that serve the needs of all.

- Strengthen local institutional capacities such as:

~ Management skills.

~ Self-reliance.

~ Self-esteem and confidence.

~ Transparency and accountability.

~ Access to greater resources.

- Provide better monitoring of the equitable distribution of the benefits, so that:

~ Remedial action can be taken quickly and easily.

~ Fairness and commitment are ensured.

~ Improved credibility of the processes is ensured.

People look after things better when they have been part of decision making and implementation, than when others have planned and implemented for them. The solution may not be the best, but it is their solution and they are therefore more likely to maintain and support it.

3. Core principles of participatory methodologies

The majority of participatory methodologies used today are based on a set of principles called SARAR:

Self-esteem: - is built through active participation, through being at the centre of your own development.

Associative strengths: - having and taking strength from a mix of people and their skills resulting in better decisions and more support in implementing them.

Resourcefulness: - local people are resourceful in taking initiative and finding solutions to problems that affect them.

Action-planning: - local people can plan and take action - they are not passive recipients.

Responsibility: - taking responsibility for the outcomes local people identify and commit to (local people only have as much power to take action as their self responsibility is inspired and supported through participatory planning and decision-making processes).

By, interpreting or ‘unpacking’ these principles in the context of sustainable development, we understand that:

- Development is people-centred.

- Development is not a process in a single direction, but a process of continuous adaptation, problem solving and exploitation of opportunities. The reasons why problems occur are always complex and often circular in nature, never simple or linear.

- Local conditions are diverse and complex and change rapidly.

- Even though people may be poor, they are knowledgeable and capable of self-reliant organisation. All individuals in a community have the ability to understand their own development opportunities and constraints.

- There must be community participation in and ownership of all processes.

- Communities must take responsibility for decision making and action planning.

- Communities must be able to make informed, appropriate local choices.

- Communities must take responsibility for implementation.

- Communities must take responsibility for sustaining their actions.

- Local capacity development must be built into the process.

- Governments, development organisations and development professionals must transform to put poor people, their ideas and insights, first.

4. Strengths and weaknesses of participatory methodologies

No one methodology is foolproof. It is therefore important to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of participatory approaches.

As noted above, the underlying premise of participatory methodologies is that people (regardless of age, gender, educational background, economic situation or social status) have the skills and insights to analyse, plan, implement, assess and monitor or modify development projects that affect their lives. More importantly, proponents of participatory approaches contend that local people are best suited to such planning and programming, given their intimate understanding of their world, and of what is and is not possible within that world. This means development agents become facilitators rather than key role players or designers in a development project. Participatory approaches, therefore, are designed “to enable rural people to do their own investigations, to share their knowledge and teach us, to do the analysis and presentations, to plan and to own outcomes” (Chambers 1983)

Evaluations of participatory methodologies have demonstrated the following strengths:

- Community management of projects is achievable.

- Commitment is considerable as these projects are owned and managed by local communities.

- Local people, regardless of economic means, are willing and able to contribute both financial and human resources to their development if they feel they have played the central role in the planning, design and implementation of the project.

- The chances of interventions being sustainable are greatly improved.

- ‘Spin-off’ internal development initiatives are frequent.

- The need for government subsidies for services is reduced or eliminated in projects with a participatory focus.

Many people have viewed participatory methodologies as ‘soft’, ‘unscientific’ and time consuming1. And, despite the growing popularity of participatory approaches to development, the reality is that qualitative programming does not command the same respect or have the same influence in the policy making process as quantitative inquiries. These concerns have been challenged by many that utilise participatory approaches in the field, but this debate is beyond the scope of this guide.

Common weaknesses of participatory programming that should be borne in mind include:

- The lack of clarity about the nature and dynamics of ‘participation’, including how power relations at local level can often shape participatory programmes.

- The assumption that facilitators are neutral observers in the process is misguided.

- The reality that much of what is labelled participatory is in fact extractive.

- The wrong assumption that participatory methodologies are, by themselves, empowering.

- The reality that tools can be manipulated to ensure an outcome that fits with what the facilitator wants.

- The tendency of the analysis to be anecdotal or to give great significance to the insights generated by a relatively small number of unspecified participants.

- The reality, that many participatory approaches are now being applied like a blueprint. Reasons are complex, but are mainly because facilitators and planners do not have a clear understanding of the participatory methodologies and their principles.