ENHANCING COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN PROGRAMMES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

'Community participation' in development programmes is defined differently by different people according to their cultural context. On the one extreme, 'participation' is perceived as the passive consumer response of receiving services from a development programme. On the other extreme, it is viewed as the complete ownership of the programme by the 'community'. There is however, some confusion regarding the term 'community'. Does it mean the group of people who stay together in the geographic location where the project is situated? Or is it a population that has come together through common interests and affiliations, such as the self help groups or disabled people's groups and so on ?

Whatever 'community' may mean to different people, they understand that changing the level of community participation from one to another is indeed difficult. At the level of implementation, the relatively small projects which were started in response to the community's needs, show higher levels of participation and more consensual modes of decision making. However, the large projects with extensive service delivery systems which lack client-centred planning, have little to do with community participation. In the latter, there is little expectation of participation by anyone. The non-vocal stake-holders, who often constitute the majority, get 'marginalised', rather than assimilated, in these projects. They perceive themselves as the passive objects of the development projects, rather than as active participants involved in shaping their own future.

This attitude of continuous dependency in many developing countries is viewed as a hangover of the decades of colonial rule, followed by a period of socialistic ideology, in which the state was viewed as the provider of all services. Many believe that in today's changing economic and political scenario, the responsibilities of organising development programmes may shift from the governments to the communities, however much one may view this shift as an abdication of responsibility on the part of the state. It is in this context that the planners from developing countries have to motivate the 'marginalised' members of their communities to move towards participatory development. The illustrations presented here deal with some of the processes involved in a planned change in the levels of participation in a development programme.

When one deals with developing countries, one has to keep in mind that they are unfamiliar with the strategies common to the western world, such as consumer ownership of programmes, risk taking, and sustainability of programmes beyond the term of external funding. Hence many projects which are planned according to western attitudes, fail when they are implemented in these countries. Unlike the European or North American states, in developing countries one has to include a strategic plan to enhance the community's 'participation', during the project planning stage.

Like any other strategic plan, enhancement of community participation also requires a clear understanding of the baseline and the expected target of achievement after a certain period of time. Because of the lack of clarity in the concepts of participation, most people find it difficult to define the levels of achievement as they progress with the project. The Table given below suggests a simple method of grading different levels of participation .

Dr. Maya Thomas & Dr. M J Thomas
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Tel and fax : 91-80-6633762
Email : thomasmaya@hotmail.com

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