Participating or taking control? An experience in rural planning from Mali

Paying for the cost of local development is one of the major challenges facing Mali's Rural Councils. The only potential source of local income in the district of Bankass in north-eastern Mali is to levy charges on local people for the use of natural resources such as forests and rangelands that are under their jurisdiction. Any development of such plans should legally be done in a consultative way for it has implications for people's livelihoods. Councils hence face the dual challenges of designing management plans for the sustainable use of natural resources which requires a long term view, and doing this in a way that is participatory and involves all those who use and depend on these resources. For three years an SOS Sahel International/GB project has been underway with the aim of encouraging Rural Councils to work in a more participatory way with their constituents and other interest groups in the formulation of their resource management plans. This article details the various stages of the iterative, process-led approach that was used with the Councils to build their capacity to implement participatory planning processes. It concludes with lessons learnt from the experience.