MINISTERIO DE EDUCACIÓN

The term participation evokes positive feelings of engagement and inclusion of citizens, and has assumed this positive sense in much of the current development policies (Cornwall and Brock, 2005). This term can suggest that members of the public are involved in some way in meeting their development needs. It also indicates an inherent shift of power from the traditional decision-makers, such as governments, to members of the public (ibid).

Cornwall (2006) argues that though participation came to be popularised in the 1990s in development policies, it was not a novel concept and had formed a part of the

lexicon of even the colonial government. ‘Popular participation’ was already a part of debates for development of colonies, where the colonial rulers claimed that they wanted to involve the local population in self-governance. From the early 1900s, participation always remained a part of development policies (Cornwall, 2008). However, it has been an extremely malleable concept, and has come to include a diverse set of practices involving people in some way in their development issues (ibid).

In the post-colonial era, participation of communities was sought for ‘community development projects’ in the form of providing cash or labour, and not necessarily in deciding what they needed for their development (Narayanan, 2003; Nelson and Wright, 1997; Puri, 2004). These projects, started by governments and international organisations, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, were seen as impositions on local communities (Narayanan, 2003). This top-down approach in community development projects, where more powerful groups, such as the governments or large international aid organisations, make decisions for the communities they target, has been widely criticised by scholars (Nelson and Wright, 1997; Cornwall, 2006). Many scholars suggest that by the 1970s, these community development projects were seen to be failing and this led to the demand for more bottom-up and participatory processes, that focus on local realities and a shift of power from ‘experts’ to the local communities (Hickey and Mohan, 2005; Narayanan, 2003; Puri, 2004).

Further, also in the 1970s, the failure of the top-down approach led to the emergence of community development-led NGOs as a response (Craig and Mayo, 2004). The NGOs claimed that they were innovative and close to the local people and therefore

could implement the development projects better (Lane, 1997). These NGOs grew during the 1980s and 1990s, and their approach to development included self-reliance. They implemented initiatives aimed at providing cost-effective service delivery, by making people provide their own resources for meeting their development needs (Cornwall, 2006). This approach also faced criticism by scholars, but the neo-liberal policies, which aimed at reducing the spending of the state, gave legitimacy to these NGOs running almost parallel to the government in service delivery and promoting self- reliance (Craig and Mayo, 2004).

By the 1990s, the so-called bottom-up approach, which was becoming more popular, became almost essential in development policies and participatory development projects (Parfitt, 2004; Cornwall, 2006). Participation, which was now being promoted as bringing efficiency in service delivery, offered to ‘empower’ people where they ‘owned’, managed and provided their services (Cornwall, 2006). It is suggested that empowering the poor almost became a universal slogan in the 1990s (Thomas, 1992).

In the present context, different actors, such as the governments, donors and NGOs, strive to incorporate the target group’s participation in the design of their projects. However, reality about people’s participation in their development is much more complex than the term ‘participation’ itself tends to suggest. A common charge has been that participation of people in community development projects is mostly efficiency-based, where people and their participation are a means to an end (Puri, 2004). In practice, power might not actually shift towards communities. Instead, the existing patterns of power relations may be perpetuated in community development projects (Narayanan, 2003). This has been evident through different approaches to development employing various forms of participation over several decades - from

participation in the form of cash and labour in the post-colonial community development projects, to participation in the form of ‘owning’, managing and providing their own services, enabled by NGO initiatives.

Hickey and Mohan (2005) suggest that while participation has been central to a number of different approaches to development, each approach has had its own debates, critiques and experiences. These approaches have mainly centred on the degree of engagement, conception of citizenship, theoretical basis and objectives of participation. The various approaches lead scholars to form typologies of participation based on degrees of participation, nature of participation, basis of participation and so on (Reed, 2008). Arnstein (1969) developed a typology through her ladder of participation, where she describes a spectrum in which participation moves from people being manipulated by authorities to them gaining control. Figure 2 shows Arnstein’s ladder of participation.

Figure 2: Arnstein’s ladder of participation

Citizen Control

Degrees of

Delegated power _{Citizen Power} Partnership Placation “ ► Degrees of Tokenism Consultation Informing Therapy _{~ ► Non-Participation} Manipulation

Though such typologies may offer a distinct way of looking at the ‘degree of participation’, in practice, participation may be much more complex than in such well- defined forms. For instance, during consultation, people may be able to bring out their needs strongly and get them included in the government/international agency/NGO’s agenda. They might feel that their participation in the form of consultation was meaningful for bringing change and not just tokenistic. Therefore, in my research I focus on the nature of participation, which is determined by the perception and experiences of participants. By this, I mean understanding participants’ assessment of their participation and the different ways in which they think they are participating.

Farrington and Bebbington (1993) propose that a true participatory process would involve people in all stages of the activity that is being undertaken. Further, it has to be seen whether only a handful of people or a particular interest group is the one participating; that wouldn’t be ‘deep’ participation. However, participation of everyone may not be practical in a project, especially if there are power relations between different groups in a community (see Guijt and Shah, 1998). Since the primary aim of participation is to enable those with less power to voice their issues and participate in their own development, my focus in this research is to explore how less powerful groups get the opportunity to do so.

Hickey and Mohan (2005) also identify certain key problems with participatory approaches, including insufficient understanding of how power operates between different actors, inadequate understanding of the role of agency in social change and a tendency of certain agents to treat participation as a technical method rather than as a method for empowerment. Such a critique asks for looking at power structures and

power relations between different actors in a project and linking participation to people’s agency. Certain scholars, such as Cornwall and Gaventa (2000), Hickey and Mohan (2004), Parfitt (2004) and Williams (2004), suggest that reconceptualising participation in these terms can help uncover the trahsformatory potential of participation, where less powerful groups indeed have the power to define what they need and bring social change accordingly (see Section 1.3.1).

The ideas on participation discussed above guide my inquiry of long-term PV projects by NGOs. The areas of focus are:

• Power relations within the community where the long-term PV projects have been implemented

• Power structures within long-term PV projects

• Nature of participation and participants’ experiences through the different phases of a long-term PV project