Applying people centred development approaches within FAO. Some practical lessons

How livelihoods approaches are implemented into projects

How do people-centred development approaches get translated by institutions into implemented projects? What are the blockages to implementation? Do development approaches become redundant once the ideas they embody have been mainstreamed?

This study, carried out by the Livelihoods Support Programme (LSP) of the FAO, aimed to draw some lessons on the implementation of people-centred approaches within the FAO and beyond.It used a comparative review of the use of Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) approaches; Farming Systems (FS); Integrated Rural Development; Gestion de Terroirs; and Latin American approaches to raise questions about the influence of cultural and linguistic divides within development; and institutional and structural blockages to the implementation of approaches.

The initial findings suggest that:

Actual implementation usually takes the form of some combination of approaches that is not systematic but draws on general experience, broad participatory principles and sector-specific methods.

Some institutional blockages exist, such as time allocated for participatory diagnosis and planning. More generally, institutional issues make development activities impermeable to real life issues such as politics, rights and structural changes.|The study finds that

New approaches play an important role in spearheading new ideas and bringing them to institutions, and become internalised on the basis of best practice experience and successful case study narratives.

A crucial issue for establishing whether new approaches really add value is their ability to capture the ‘spirit’ and dominant concerns of what is happening in the real world, both North and South.

How good is this research?
Assessing the quality of research can be a tricky business. This blog from our editor offers some tools and tips.
Read now

Eldis

Applying people centred development approaches within FAO. Some practical lessons