Participation in social funds.

This paper discusses the BankÆs experiences in the use of participatory approaches in the design of Social Funds. The newest World Bank supported funds are designed explicitly to increase the participation of beneficiaries in identifying and managing micro projects, with the aim of making project activities more relevant and sustainable. The paper also describes practical issues involved in this sector, looking at and the nature and degree of stakeholders involved, institutional setup, organisation, management and staffing, with a focus on the nature of social funds, the transfer of participatory approaches to government, the decentralisation of management, sharing of information with stakeholders and the whole dynamic process which involves training, skills sharing, transfer and incentives. The paper identifies that a common feature of all social funds is the microproject cycle which parallels the donorÆs project cycle, it looks at the different stages of the cycle and presents strategies that can be employed to at every stage of the micro project cycle to cultivate participation and build upon previous interactions with ultimate beneficiaries. The rest of the paper looks at the role of intermediary and community base organisations, which discusses issues on institutional analysis and strengthening in intermediary organisations, and institutional assessment and strengthening in community organisations. The final section presents eight key to guide Task Managers in their design of participatory social funds.