Scaling-up particpation at USAID
Since the 1970s many non-governmental development organizations have moved away from top-down modes of operation toward participatory practices that hand over decision-making power to the poor. The bilateral development agencies of the industrialized states have been slower to follow suit, but in the 1980s and 1990s a number also initiated participatory-oriented reforms. Development scholars have paid little attention to reforms of the larger organizations. In this paper we analyze the efforts of the United States Agency for International Development to embrace participation in the 1990s.