Resources

This document is based on a paper written by Banerjee, A; Campbell, G; Cruz, C, M; Davis, S and Molnar, A, as a contribution to the Participation Sourcebook. It presents materials from Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Haiti, Mexico, Philippines, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Nepal and India to support the notion that the participation of local communities and other stakeholders in managing forestry and conservation projects can help to improve forest productivity, alleviate poverty, enhance environmental sustainability, and make rules governing forest access more enforceable. It argues that introducing participatory management depends on government commitment; and it requires time and resources to develop consensus among stakeholders, establish new institutional arrangements, decentralise finance and administration, ensure appropriate rules and incentives for local involvement, and build organisational capacity at the local level.

Afforestation programmes in Kabripathar, Gujarat, India, failed because locals were not consulted (01). In contrast, AKRSP has been using PRA to understand peopleÆs knowledge (02). This video documents how PRA methods were used in an international workshop held there, and how the methods are integrated into the organisational structure of AKRSPÆs programmes. Methods shown include mapping and modelling (03), transects (05), use of matrices for a social census (08), natural resource assessment (10), matrix ranking of problems (11), tree and wealth rankings (15), and seasonality diagrams (16). A special feature of AKRSPÆs organisation is the use of villagers as extension volunteers, which means that outsiders donÆt set the agenda (06). Master extension volunteers, elected by villagers on the basis of their skills and expertise, are accountable to AKRSP. It is explained that AKRSP sees its role as encouraging joint learning by AKRSP and village people. The goal of PRA is to help AKRSP and villagers assess what physical and social resources exist. Villagers carry out the analysis and set priorities, facilitated by extension volunteers (11). The video ends with reflections from participants in the international training workshop on what they had experienced (17) and also from some village representatives (19).

This dvd concerns environmental protection in Tanzania. It argues for greater roles for local people as experts and researchers in collaboration with outside professionals. In a Tanzanian setting, exclusion of local people from planning processes has disregarded traditional environmental protection practices (04). Current environmental problems highlight the need for professionals and local people to work together (06) and to revive traditional practices (07). Teaching young people is important to this (09). Village mapping leads to a discussion of changes over time and their impact on the environment (11). Five villages participated in a workshop to share experiences and learn from eachother (14). Problems were discussed and solutions proposed (19).

The book explores the main issues and concerns of development professionals about adapting PRA from micro to macro organisations. It includes a checklist of practical considerations on training, taking projects from pilots and scaling up, changing institutional cultures and procedures and introducing participatory monitoring and evaluation.

This document discusses the importance of æparticipationÆ by all stakeholders in natural resource management in SSA. It reviews various approaches to participation within development discourse, the value of participation for development and the difficulties and costs associated with greater stakeholder participation. The institutional mechanisms through which participation becomes possible, in particular donor support and local civil society are described. Policy implications for donors include the need to be realistic, to open up their own decision-making processes, and to provide support to stakeholders through organisational skills training, education, and support for democratising reform.

A sourcebook for World Bank task managers providing case studies and pointers towards making use of participatory approaches. Starting with reflections on participation and moving through a set of first person shared experiences the book underlines the context-specific-nature of participatory methodologies. This is followed by chapters giving pointers on using participation in decision-making, in enabling the poor to participate and on understanding techniques and methods. The final part of the book provides a selection of working papers by world bank staff.