Resources

Robert Chambers argues that central issues in development have been overlooked and that many past errors have flowed from domination by those with power. Through analysing experience - of past mistakes and myths and of the continuing methodological revolution of PRA - the author points towards solutions. He argues that personal, professional and instiutional change is essential if the realities of the poor are to receive greater recognition.

This report presents the findings from the DFID-funded research project 'Participatory Mechanisms for Sustainable Development of Coastal Ecosystems' which took place between 1997-1999 in the Puttalam District, Sri Lanka. The research was a response to donors growing interest in participatory approaches to natural resource management (NRM) and coastal zone management (CZM). Within, the Puttalam District many typical CZM problems have manifested. These include critical environmental changes as a result of growing commercial shrimp farming, reduced areas of mangroves and pollution of the water table. The report is divided into four parts. The first part summarizes the context in which the study has taken place. It discusses the concepts of participation and of 'stakeholders' and how these concepts are being applied to CZM. The second part gives a summary of the fieldwork findings. Challenges to CZM in the area and obstacles to successful management and participatory approaches are discussed. The third part discusses the fieldwork findings, drawing out theoretical issues about social complexities in the field and patronage. The last part suggests how obstacles to CZM and participatory development can be overcome, aiming the recommendations largely at interested development agencies. Management options for the Puttalam district concludes the section.

This information pack introduces the reader to Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) which were developed during the 1990s in order to increase poor people's participation in the ongoing processes of formulating and implementing poverty alleviation policies. Part One provides a general background to PPAs, explaining what they are, how they have developed, how they are carried out, what impact they have had, challenges that are faced and the future of PPAs. Throughout this section, case studies are outlined corresponding with and highlighting issues discussed. Part Two gives abstracts of information resources on PPAs on which part one is based and details of resource availability. Part Three reproduces three key information resources.

This issue of in brief traces synergies and tensions between gender and participation in development practice. The lead article cites the importance of mainstreaming gender-aware and participatory approaches for equity; there are two case studies concerned with entrenched resistance to equity within organisations; a final article considers the incorporation of gender into poverty reduction strategies advocated by the World Bank.

Effective poverty reduction requires narrowing the gap between words and actions, making trust and accountability real within and between organisations, at all levels and between all actors. Aid agencies today are shifting emphasis from projects and service delivery to a language of rights and governance. They have introduced new approaches and requirements, stressing partnership and transparency. But embedded traditions and bureaucratic inertia mean old behaviours, procedures and organisational cultures persist. This Policy Briefing looks at how current practices maintain such cultures, and at how they can be changed by achieving consistency between personal behaviour; institutional norms and the new development agenda.

This paper explores the dynamics of the making and shaping of poverty policy. It takes as its starting point a critique of linear versions of policy-making, highlighting the complex interplay of power, knowledge and agency in poverty policy processes. We argue in Section One that the policy process involves a complex configuration of interests between a range of differently positioned actors, whose agency matters, but whose interactions are shaped by power relations. Making sense of contemporary poverty policy requires a closer exploration of the dynamics within and beyond the arenas in which policies are made and shaped. It also requires an understanding of how particular ways of thinking about poverty have gained ascendancy, coming to determine the frame through which poverty is defined, measured and tackled. To do so calls for an historical perspective, one that situates contemporary poverty policy with regard to antecedent visions and versions. Section Two of this paper thus provides an overview of differing narratives on the causes of and solutions to poverty, especially as they have emerged in dominant development discourses. Making sense of participation in the policy process requires that we identify and explore policy spaces in which alternative versions of poverty may be expressed by a variety of voices, and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that surround them. In Section Three of this paper, we examine two broad kinds of policy spaces - those that are found in invited forums of participation created from above by powerful institutions and actors, and those more autonomous spaces created from below through more independent forms of social action on poverty related issues. By examining how different narratives of poverty and different actors interact in such spaces - as well as how they may be excluded from them - we can better understand the ways in which power and knowledge frame the policy process.

This review aims to gather insights into the lived meaning of food insecurity, by collecting highlights from existing participatory assessments. The source materials include the published outputs and some of the original field reports from the World Banks 1999 Consultations with the Poor exercise. In addition the review covers a varied selection of participatory work on poverty and food insecurity, from a range of institutions, geographical regions, and socio-economic contexts. Common patterns and themes are identified, which recur across countries and groups:
À Hunger, in its various dimensions
À Insecurity as a material fact and a psychological element
À The day to day search for food
À Seasonality and cycles of hunger
À Social dimensions of food insecurity
À Chains of causality which link hunger, work and livelihoods
À The role of assets in food security
À Poverty trap - all income and energy spent on food
Cutting across these themes are a number of dimensions of diversity: Gender, age, rural/urban location, livelihood characteristics and geographical region

Two major policy points arise from the work:
À Hunger and anxiety about food are central to the reality of poverty, but can only be fully understood within the complex web of factors and processes which constitute that reality
À Food security emerges as above all a livelihoods issue. Improving livelihoods is therefore the most effective way of improving food security