Resources

In a new approach announced by the World Bank and IMF, civil society is being offered a part in shaping and implementing national anti-poverty strategies. In order to trigger debt relief, countries are being asked to produce a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) drawing on inputs from all sections of society. This Policy Briefing details what a PRSP actually is, who should be involved, how to build participation into the process, what can be learnt from previous efforts to build participation into policy, where problems lie and how to monitor the process. It argues that learning from previous experience is vital if this new approach is to live up to its ambitious rhetoric.

This IDS working paper is one of a series arising from the Pathways to Participation project which was initiated in Jan 1999 by the Participation Group, with the aim of taking stock of the first 10 years of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). There is a tendency to call any development practice that in some way involves local people 'participatory', and a huge diversity of meanings and practices can be hidden under this umbrella term. Additionally, the term 'participation' has become uncritically associated with 'empowerment'. Such oversimplified representations ignore the fact that participatory practice will vary greatly according to the context within which it operates. The paper analyses one particular approach to participatory development developed by SPEECH, an NGO working in Tamil Nadu, India, focusing specifically on gender relations. The paper draws on fieldwork from two communities - Kottam and Maniyampatti - in which SPEECH have been working for a lengthy period. The authors suggest that SPEECH's participatory practices are shaped by how both the staff and the local actors understand participation. As a result, the two communities have developed different participatory processes. The paper describes the notion that empowerment through participation is a relational and varied process occurring in spaces where people are able to interact according to an 'unusual' set of rules (i.e. during PRA workshops). The authors contend that such a process can have wider effects on social relations in everyday life, although, in this particular case study, certain aspects of gender relations have remained unchanged.

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.

En un nuevo enfoque anunciado por el Banco Mundial y el FMI, se ofrece a la sociedad civil un papel en la definición y puesta en práctica de las estrategias nacionales en contra de la pobreza. Con el fin de tener acceso a reducciones en sus deudas, se pide a los países que prepaen un documento de Estrategia de Reducción de la Pobreza, fundamentado en contribuciones de todos los sectores de la sociedad. Si bien las experiencias previas muestran que es mucho lo que se puede hacer para que los procesos de diseño de políticas respondan más a las necesidades de los pobres, esas experiencias también indican que esto implica muchos retos y dificultades. Es esencial tomar en cuenta estas lecciones para que el nuevo enfoque esté a la altura de su ambiciosa retórica.

The functioning of democratic institutions has the potential to bring about substantial policy change in favour of poor and marginalised people. However, there is a limited understanding of how to strengthen the political representation of poor people within democratic structures. This paper looks at one example of how the political representation of a historically marginalised and excluded group of pastoralists in Ethiopia is shifting and changing. Based on research at federal, regional and sub-regional levels in Ethiopia, it discusses the establishment of a body within parliament committed to representing this group. It identifies the critical factors which led to its formation as changes in the broader political environment as well as a specific moment of change, the role of key actors both internally and externally, and the cumulative effect of the mobilisation of a substantial group of MPs. The paper also discusses the limitations of both this body and other structures of political representation in the political context of Ethiopia. The key constraint to effective political representation is identified as the broader political environment, including a lack of political competition and an absence of institutionalised democratic processes.

This paper explores the potential of Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) as agents of social, institutional and individual change. It argues that while HLIs have a clear role in building the capacity of individuals and organisations to undertake key development initiatives and to practice participation, they are often restricted by internal and external constraints. Perceptions of HLIs as experiencing hierarchical power systems, structural rigidities, traditional elitism, and research which is disassociated from local realities imply that a paradigm shift in the learning and research approaches of HLIs is greatly needed. In response to some of these concerns, a wide range of initiatives and innovations are promoting learning of participation and participatory teaching and learning. In April 2002 a global dialogue on Learning and Teaching Participation (LTP) was launched at IDS (Institute of Development Studies), UK, with the purpose of sharing innovations and experiences in order to make lessons learned more widely available, as well as helping to promote LTP through a dialogue on strategies, methodologies, processes, practices and theories. This paper draws on the key issues and findings from the dialogue and related research to discuss practice and potentials of LTP in HLIs. It concludes that significant achievements have been made in bridging theory and practice, linking HLIs and communities through collaborative research, and developing participatory methods for more effective learning. However, challenges still remain and further research is needed to address the contextual implications of learning and to develop appropriate participatory methodologies to support these ventures.

This paper is part of the series Lessons for change about organisational learning, resulting from a collaboration between ActionAid, DFID, Sida and the Participation Group at the Institute of Development Studies to explore understandings of learning and to document innovative approaches. The paper looks at the origins of the Accountability, Learning and Planning System (ALPS), an approach to managing the learning and relationships of an international non-governmental agency, ActionAid. Starting with the origins of ALPS in the late 90s, and describing the false starts and factors that mobilised change, the authors go on to describe: the new system and what was unique about it; challenges and successes of introducing the idea and encouraging local innovation with over 30 country offices on three continents; dilemmas and contradictions between the organisation's international systems and the principles of the new accountability learning and planning system and how they were overcome; and the differences made by the new system and the work still to be done. Recognition of the need for participation and downward accountability has been around for a long time. This paper shows that the hard work starts in creating systems that will make it happen. ActionAid is by no means the only organisation which is going through this process. Hopefully some of the insights in this paper will help those on the same journey.