Resources

Account of how communities came together to harness water for themselves after failing to get water from state institutions and machinery. The article details how, with the help of an NGO, Agua del Pueblo, the communities devised a working mechanism which was participatory and democratic to manage their water resources and distribution.

An account of the Participatory Action Research (PAR) process in Colombia which served to broaden community participation in the management of scant water resources for a growing community and pave the way for the prioritisation of problems in a participatory and democratic way. The article brings in the voices of the community.

The article describes the state of the water management system in Pakora, Pakistan when the PAR team made forays to assess the situation. Information on the process adopted by the PAR team is recounted and the response from the community is included on key issues such as the committee and transparency and record keeping. The article concludes by providing evidence of improvements to the water management system and assessing the gains made by the community.

'Voices of the Poor' is a series of three books that collates the experiences, views and aspirations of over 60,000 poor women and men. This second book of the series draws material from a 23-country comparative study, which used open-ended participatory methods, bringing together the voices and realities of 20,000 poor women, men, youth and children. Despite very different political, social and economic contexts, there are striking similarities in poor people's experiences. The common underlying theme is one of powerlessness, which consists of multiple and interlocking dimensions of illbeing or poverty. The book starts by describing the origins of the study, the methodology and some of the challenges faced. This is followed by an exploration of the multidimensional nature of wellbeing and illbeing. Most of the book comprises the core findings - the 10 dimensions of powerlessness and illbeing that emerge from the study - and is organised around these themes. These include livelihoods and assets; the places where poor people live and work; the body and related to this, accessing health services; gender roles and gender relations within the household; social exclusion; insecurity and related fears and anxieties; the behaviour and character of institutions; and poor people's ratings of the most important institutions in their lives. These dimensions are brought together into a many-stranded web of powerlessness, which is compounded by the lack of capability, including lack of information, education, skills and confidence. The final chapter is a call to action and dwells on the challenge of change.

The author narrates a personal journey to participation, through her work with local fisher communities in Tanzania, who were trying to stop dynamite and other illegal fishing methods. The use of video as a medium of communication empowered local villagers, giving them a means to forward their claims directly to those in authority. She describes the experience of lobbying the government at the national level, and how she stepped outside her role of NGO worker to accompany the villagers she had been working with to confront the Prime Minister. This act drew on an awareness that a facilitator is not neutral, and that commitment must be personal and political, not just that of professional duty. However, along the way, her journey has been fraught with personal risks as they confronted powerful local elites and opposed vested interests. She reflects on the need to change attitude and behaviour in institutions, and to put our own interests last, for participation and peoples' empowerment to go beyond rhetoric.

The paper is a case study of the way that World Neighbors used PRA in a process of community development in one sublocation in Kenya. The paper gives some background as to the practices of World Neighbors, the conditions in the community, and the role of government in the area. It then explains how PRA was used with a representative body at the sublocation level for analysis and planning. The PRA discussions led to development activities that had impacts on the physical well-being of community members, as well as less tangible social effects. The social effects included new modes of operating for the village leadership, changed relationships between community members, and supportive attitudes of local government officials for community led development strategies. The case study raises a number of general strategic choices facing non-governmental organisations using PRA and presents the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies chosen by World Neighbors.