Participation in Rural Development Planning

K.M.K. BENGESI
Development Studies Institute
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Concept of Participatory Planning

• Declaration of the World on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development

(WCARRD, 1979)
• “Participation of rural people in the institutions that govern their
lives is a basic human right”
• To realize the potential of rural development
• Disadvantage rural people have to be organized and actively
involved in designing policies and programs
• Controlling social and economic institutions
• Development agencies to work in close cooperation with
organization of intended beneficiaries
Concept of participation Cont…

• Objectives of participation
• Build ownership of development interventions.

• Sustain development initiatives.

• Create learning process to empower local community.

• Capacity building of community members to take timely and relevant

decisions.
• Create confidence of community in their own knowledge and abilities.

• Narrow conceptualization of participation

• Limitation of community engagement in the process of policy formulation.

• Under representation of community interest.

Effective participation

• Transform institution set up to support effective participation E.g.

Engage community in the whole process of planning
• Analytical phase – resource map, transect walk, venn diagram,
wealth ranking, stakeholders matrix, problem tree / problem web
• Planning phase – Planning Matrix (PDM), Resource and
responsibility schedules, M & E Matrix
• Acknowledge contribution of community when designing development
initiatives.
Resource Map
Transect Walk
Scope of participation

• In practice participation is used in various context and for

different purpose. In Project cycle participation used in
• Situation analysis that leads to identification and
formulation of development initiatives
• Planning process
• Implementation

• Monitoring and evaluation

Participation in perspective

• Neo-liberal (partial participation)

• Centered on Minimum participation of community in the process
of planning, implementation, M&E
• Efforts are taken by the state agencies to collaborate with the non
governmental institutions to make the effort of state more
efficient and to include identified target groups in the process of
development.
• The demand and needs of disadvantaged assumed to be met
within the existing social order hardly affecting the power of the
powerful individuals in the community
Participation in perspective Cont…

• Post Maxian radical notion

• Centered on maximum types of participation (genuine
participation).
• Focus on bottom up social mobilization in a community
• The key elements in this process is to build common
ethical and collective identity around common
experience within economic and political
marginalization.
• In this way, power is conceptualized as both relational
and conflictual terms.
Complexity of participation

• Self reading:
• Participation has drawn attention of many scholars
with different professional background. In your own
opinion what is your understanding of the term
participation in development initiatives.
Importance of participation

• Integrate society needs and address incompatible interest of different stakeholders.

• Unite roles and responsibilities of individuals and social institutions to foster sustainable

development

• To give poor and the marginalized people more voice and influence over development

decisions

• Build ownership of development interventions.

• Sustain development initiatives.

• Create learning process to empower local community.

• Capacity building of community members to take timely and relevant decisions.

• Create confidence of community in their own knowledge and abilities.