Participatory Approaches and the Measurement of Human Well-being

participation, appraisal, methodology

Getting to Grips with Power: Action Learning for Social Change in the UK

The transformative promises of participatory and action research can lead to a preoccupation with methods and tools, diverting attention from important questions about politics, purpose, facilitation, and the philosophical and pedagogical claims that underlie the use of these methods. Reflecting on two action learning processes with community leaders and voluntary sector workers in England, which combined a series of reflective workshops with periods of practice, this article examines the nature of the learning process, the power and position of the facilitators, and the quality of this experience as a form of participatory or action research. Looking through the lenses of the critical, reflective and experiential learning traditions that underpin participatory and action research, the article asks how these theories and practices can help to explain the process. It also asks how certain assumptions about critical and experiential learning might be problematic and – while making transformative claims – actually close down necessary reflection about power, positionality and the ethical dilemmas and imperfections that arise in all research

Aprendiendo en la práctica: experiencias de un innovador programa de másteres

El presente artículo expone la historia de un innovador programa de másteres para profesionales de todo el mundo que están interesados en la utilización de criterios de participación para incentivar el desarrollo y el cambio social. Los másteres apoyan a los estudiantes a integrar su propia experiencia práctica y su trabajo diario como profesionales, con la teoría y los análisis conceptuales, utilizando métodos de investigación-acción y práctica reflexiva. Además se describen los elementos clave del diseño del programa, y se señalan los retos y las lecciones aprendidas en la elaboración y enseñanza de este enfoque de aprendizaje

Strengthening Local Organisation:

Summary As aid agencies embrace the concept of strengthening local organisation as an end rather than a means for achieving project objectives, there is need for wider understanding of best practice and lessons learnt in organisational development at the grassroots level. Four case studies are examined here from the international non?governmental organisation world (Haiti, Peru, Mali and Nepal). Key implications for practice and policy are drawn from these examples. In marginalised rural areas, local organisation seems to take hold more firmly, with a process approach that permits people to define their own priorities and organise themselves around appropriate solutions and structures. Integrated, synergetic programmes that include economic initiatives such as credit and savings yield stronger local organisations than single?sector or technology?driven programmes, and are more likely to include women and the poor. Sensitivity to context, flexibility and adaptability are among other important variables. The implications of these lessons for policies and partnerships within the international aid community are far reaching. If donor agencies are serious about strengthening local organisations and enhancing problem?solving capacities on a long?term, sustainable basis, and wish to make the growth of civil society as important as meeting sectoral goals, there is a need for fundamental changes in the way aid funding and partnerships are understood, negotiated, structured, timed and assessed

Why Citizens Don’t Engage – Power, Poverty and Civic Habitus

Poor people have been recast by development agencies from ‘beneficiaries’ to ‘engaged citizens’ – yet the assumptions behind many democracy and accountability programmes remain simplistic. Power defines and constrains citizen engagement, which takes place against a backdrop of complex histories of exclusion, discrimination and violence. Poor people’s access to income, services or benefits can rely on patronage relations which they may be wisely reluctant to challenge. Citizen engagement is thus shaped by civic habitus: the tacit collusion with socialised norms of power. This article draws on a study of civil society strengthening work by Swedish organisations and their partners around the world which illustrates the challenges posed by political cultures of passivity and questions the logic behind much human rights and democracy programming. The article offers useful frameworks for understanding how power affects citizen engagement and the formation of civic habitus, and explores the implications of this for more transformative approaches to citizen engagement

Power Above and Below the Waterline: Bridging Political Economy and Power Analysis

Pre-submitted version of article for IDS Bulletin 45.5.The power relations that underlie poverty and exclusion can make or break development programmes, if not understood and addressed at all stages of design and implementation. Political economy and power analysis represent distinct but complementary approaches to making sense of power in the context of development initiatives. Both approaches are used to provide organisations with a better understanding of key actors and their interests, and of the enabling and constraining structures, conditions and narratives in which their actions take place. These include both observable and less visible norms, institutions and discourses, and the formal and informal motivations shaping different actors’ behaviour in supporting or blocking change. This article seeks to clarify the similarities and differences between political economy and power analysis, what they each can offer, and how they may be used in complementary ways to make development cooperation more effective and transformative.SD

The new dynamics of aid: power, procedures and relationships

Effective poverty reduction requires narrowing the gap between words and actions, making trust and accountability real within and between organisations, at all levels and between all actors. Aid agencies today are shifting emphasis from projects and service delivery to a language of rights and governance. They have introduced new approaches and requirements, stressing partnership and transparency. But embedded traditions and bureaucratic inertia mean old behaviours, procedures and organisational cultures persist. The way forward is to achieve consistency between personal behaviour, institutional norms and the new development agenda

Evaluation of the Strategy for Support via Swedish Civil Society Organisations 2010-2014

This report synthesises the findings and recommendations from an evaluation of Sweden’s Civil Society Strategy 2010–2014 as implemented by Swedish civil society organisations and their national partners in three countries – Nicaragua, Pakistan and Uganda. The purpose of the evaluation was to find out if, how and why/why not Sweden’s support to civil society organisations has contributed to the overall objectives of the strategy. The Reality Check Approach was used to understand the realities and perspectives of people living in poverty combined with ‘mesolevel’ and organisational inquiries. The findings were used to explore the theories of change of the organisations in relation to people’s realities, in order to analyse the strategy’s relevance, alignment and feasibility

Multiple Faces of Power and Learning

Power relations are seen by many as an obstacle to reducing poverty and inequality. There is a growing appetite for understanding power and for being more strategic about it, and a number of useful frameworks are now available. But the complexity of power makes it difficult to know which concepts to use, or how to develop capacities to put them into practice. This article argues that these questions need to be answered together: the multiple faces of power require multiple faces of learning. The case is made for using ‘deep’, experiential and reflective approaches that combine rational reflection and technical analysis with more embodied, emotional and creative methods of sense?making. Such capacities also need to be supported through adaptive, context?sensitive and applied methods, not imparted in abstract or instrumental ways. Emerging thinking about capacity supports this view, and could benefit from traditions of adult education and reflective learning