Resources

This is a resource book designed primarily for development workers working within the field of the rural poor. It describes a range of first-hand experiences with participatory approaches in the context of projects funded by The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and governments in Asia and the Pacific. The book is divided into a number of sections. Part One examines poverty and participation and explains why the poor should be targeted and in what ways this is possible. Part Two describes in detail the actual participatory approaches. Part three concentrates on participation in the project planning and implementation stage. Part Four assesses the monitoring impact and Part Five examines issues in participation with regards to institutions, partnerships and governance.

This article examines the guiding ideas and ultimate realities of government-led participatory research in Tanzania and Uganda. It considers the extent to which research results have influenced meso- (e.g. district) and macro- (e.g. national) level planning for poverty reduction and why; the degree to which research processes have contributed to democratisation and citizen empowerment and implications for the future of participatory approaches to policy oriented research. The article reflects over the consequences of recent initiatives from development aid donors to streamline development assistance and improve the performance of sector ministries, leading to unprecedented pressure for poor countries to generate up-to-date, detailed socio-economic data. It looks specifically on how this has affected East Africa. It goes on to give a background to the development and role of Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) in Africa, and looks specifically at the Tanzania PPA (TzPPA), 2002-2003, and the Ugandan PPA Process (UPAP), 1998-2001. It compares the methodological differences of the two projects, where the bad experiences with Community Action Plans (CAPs) in UPAP led TzPPA; and UPAP focussed more on involving as many individual community members as possible while TzPPA only sought large community-wide. Finally an analysis is made of the benefits of participatory approaches in UAPAP and TzPPA on policy and empowerment, and it concludes with the potentials and pitfalls of PPAs.

Understanding the allocation of public resources through national and local budgets has become an increasing focus of development. This has been driven by two principal trends. Donor agencies, on the one hand, are seeking to deliver growing proportions of their financial assistance to partner countries through mainstream government systems - while, at a different level, a vibrant civil society movement has developed which seeks to promote goals of citizen empowerment, gender equity and poverty reduction through the potentials offered by the budget process. Norton and Elson aim to contribute to the evolving understanding of public expenditure management as a political, rather than a purely technical, process. In particular, they explore the ways in which a rights approach can contribute to strengthening voice and pro-poor outcomes in budget processes, and include examples of pro-poor and gender-sensitive budget initiatives from countries such as Brazil and South Africa. The work was commissioned by DFID as part of the programme of work to take forward it's human rights strategy, and identifies issues, partners, tools and methods that may help development actors to support citizen accountability and a pro-poor, gender-equitable, focus in public expenditure management.