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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.
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Why do field workers use participatory approaches as they do? This paper uses a case study of fieldworkers' use of Participatory Rural Appraisal in ActionAid The Gambia to address the question. Original empirical material that focuses on fieldworkers' perceptions of the factors that influence them is examined through the conceptual framework of structuration theory. The dissertation argues that the practice of a participatory approach emerges from a complex process of negotiation where fieldworkers are subject to unique combinations of competing influences from the organisation they work for, the communities they work with and their own personal characteristics. It suggests that fieldworkers can actively pursue personal agendas and can also be involved in changing the structures that condition their actions. However the dissertation concludes that elements of the organisational structure can leave little room for fieldworkers to use their agency positively. Managers need to change this structure if the gap between the policy and practice of participatory approaches is to be reduced. A deeper understanding of fieldworker's use of participatory approaches will make it possible to establish what changes are required to improve the implementation and institutionalisation of these approaches.
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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.
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This IDS working paper examines the role of knowledge in the process of making and implementing poverty reduction policy. It focuses on the production of poverty knowledge through measurement and assessment, providing an overview of contemporary poverty assessment approaches, and the issues and dilemmas involved in applying them in the context of poverty reduction policy processes. The first section examines the policy process in order to understand the relationship between poverty knowledge and policy change. It looks at how legitimate knowledge is traditionally framed in the policy process as the domain of technical experts who reduce complex phenomena to measurable variables, and how this frame changes if policy is understood as a more chaotic process with multiple actors involved. Section Two discusses the broad questions of what poverty actually is and how it can be measured, focusing on the fact that a consensus appears to have emerged which then obscures the many debates centred around poverty measurement. Three policy events are examined in order to show how different objectives shape the methodological choices policy actors make. The third section focuses on a range of methodologies available for poverty assessments, with a focus on household surveys and participatory poverty assessments (PPAs). Lastly, the World Bank and Oxfam are examined in order to understand how two international development actors with different objectives made use of acquired poverty knowledge in constructing policy messages. The argument is proposed that the agency and objectives of the policy actors themselves are most important in shaping policy narratives.
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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.
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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.
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Based on the author's own experience as head of a bilateral agency country office, the paper tells a story about how the donor community became engaged in a conflict about monitoring the Poverty Reduction Strategy. This experience is used to explore donors' involvement in political processes within aid-recipient countries. Their understanding of the national context and the quality of the relations that donor staff establish in the recipient country only partially explain the nature of their involvement. Because they are sustained over time and are not contingent on the country where a staff member happens to be working for a few years there are two other sets of non local relationships that may be more influential. These are membership of the global development cooperation community, of which the country specific donor community is a sub-set, and the relationships back home to the staff member's own country's history, institutions, values and practices. The interpretation of these sets of relations, and the action resulting from this, are mediated by an individual's own personal history and life experiences. Consciously situating oneself with respect to personal and institutional values and relationships would allow individual staff members in donor agencies to reflect upon and explore taken for granted assumptions about the way the world appears to them. It would help them work more comfortably and sensitively with the ambiguity, paradox and unanticipated outcomes that they encounter on a daily basis in their goal of reducing world poverty. The paper argues that greater reflexivity would help donor staff and their organisations become more skilled at supporting aid recipients in their efforts.
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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.
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This briefing looks at how participatory immersion techniques can be used to promote advocacy in policy planning, focussing specifically on gaining insight into the situation of the poor. Senior staff in aid agencies are involved in daily decisions about policy and practice which have direct impact on the lives of poor people. But in a rapidly changing world, how can they be sure that they are basing those decisions on up-to-date information about what poor people want and would consider to be most helpful? REALISE is a participatory approach to learning, whereby staff from policy institutions and donor agencies spend a few days living and working with host families in a poor community. This enables them to engage in critical self-reflection both on their own and in a facilitated group and can bring long-term benefits to the practice of development. The experience increases motivation and commitment and the personal contact ensures that poor peopleÆs voices and perspectives are heard and integrated into new policy approaches and practice at senior level.
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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.
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This literature review 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. Organisational learning is increasingly being viewed as key to improving development performance and impact. However, there remains confusion around what the term means and how it translates into practice. This literature review aims to provide some insight in this area. More specifically, it highlights the importance of learning in the context of the current development environment; briefly summarises literature on knowledge, learning and the learning organisation from both the corporate and the development sectors; develops an understanding of learning as reflection and reflexivity; reviews a number of key theories which help to inform an improved understanding of learning as reflection and reflexivity; and explores some of the organisational implications for institutionalising this type of learning. In three chapters it discusses what we mean by learning and the learning organization; the characteristics of learning and reflection processes; challenges to reflective learning; and whether learning in development organisations is an achievable goal.
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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.
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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. Based on the author's own experience of working for development agencies, most recently as head of a country office in Latin America, this paper also draws on research carried out in 2003 and supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Asia Regional Policy Research Fund. This included interviewing DFID's partners in one country and running workshops for DFID staff in the same and in two other country offices. The first draft also benefited very considerably from the opportunity of sharing ideas and experience at a workshop in Sahy, Sao Paolo on Partnerships and Influencing, described in another paper in this series. The paper summarises the principal theme and poses some questions for readers to consider and discuss, possibly in workshops that they may wish to organise. It briefly reviews and critiques current understandings of influencing in the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and provides examples from Latin America of efforts to take the agenda further. It looks at how these understandings have been applied and developed in parts of Asia. Finally it proposes some fundamental principles for influencing and explores the operational implications of these for teams in country offices of DFID and other international development agencies.
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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. Today's development talk is full of concepts such as participation, ownership, partnership and accountability; concepts that speak above all to the complex relationships that those who work in aid bureaucracies need to manage. Yet scant opportunity exists within these settings for reflection in and on everyday working practice and its relationship with the ideals that policies profess. In this paper, we describe an experiment in creating these spaces for reflection and learning in such an organisational setting. It narrates the process of establishing and running two participatory learning groups in the Swedish official development agency, Sida: one in the Stockholm headquarters, and one in the Embassy of Sweden in Nairobi. In the work, a hybrid approach to participatory learning was evolved, taking principles from action oriented research methodologies and adapting them to the context of an aid bureaucracy. Through cycles of reflection and action over a period of close to a year, group members explored experiences and ideas, building analyses, alliances and possibilities for action through participatory interaction. Fostering subtle changes through small acts and shifts in thinking, the learning groups helped foster greater reflexivity amongst participants and, with it, a degree of engagement and awareness with the potential for changes at other scales. This paper reports on the way the process developed, and reflects on lessons learnt with potential for wider application.