Rights-based approaches
Participation in international development discourse and practice 'state of the art' and challenges
A critical overview of participation
Authors:
F. Bliss; S. Neumann
Publisher:
Institute for Development and Peace/Institut für Entwicklung und Frieden, University of Duisburg, 2008
Participation has become one of the most important buzzwords in the international development discourse since at least the middle of the 1990s. However the positive connotation of participation shared by almost all actors in the field is increasingly challenged through critical remarks forwarded by theoreticians and practitioners alike. This article provides a critical overview of the dimensions and meanings of “participation” for different actors and in different contexts, the authors summarise and analyse the current controversy surrounding the concept and its implementation.
The authors find that in many development programmes (from the project level to sector‐wide approaches) and Poverty Reduction Strategy processes, participation is seen and implemented in a functional and utilitarian way to achieve predefined objectives, and not as a tool for empowerment. The same holds for the actors from bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, including many nongovernmental organisations. In this paper current challenges of participation and development are derived and discussed, including key issues such as legitimacy and representation of various groups of stakeholders, participation and decentralisation, participation and civil society, participation and the poor, and participation and conflict. Important results from the study are summarised and include:
- the literature review and the authors own experiences reveal a substantial discrepancy between the claims for and the reality of participation in development cooperation
- if statements, particularly those by the World Bank, regarding participation at national level were taken seriously, it would amount to the participation of all societal groups in national decisionmaking processes concerning development policy
- analysis of the international debate on participation has revealed deficits in both the concepts and the implementation of stakeholder participation.
