1. Introduction

From the 1980s onwards, participatory development has been popular in the international development agenda. It is because the top-down approach had not achieved remarkable success even though it had been applied for no less than 30 years since the end of World War ?, and because it appeared that external and expert-oriented approaches were not effective at best, or made situations more deteriorating at worst (Cooke 2001 p. 5).

At the same time, the civil society and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have gained popularity and gradually relegated the government. They are regarded as more effective, responsive and closer to beneficiaries than the government and both bilateral and multilateral donors began to provide funds to them instead of the government (Hulme 1997 p. 6).

In fact, there are plenty of empirical cases in which CSOs that adopted participatory approaches promoted the empowerment of the marginalized by increasing the mutual accountability between them (Shah 1995; Covey 1995). However, it is fair to say that this is not always the case. CSOs are often forced to apply participatory projects by donors that still persist in the top-down centralized system (Chambers 1997 p. 211). As a result, the projects do not foster the empowerment of beneficiaries but integrate them into the international capitalist system and deteriorate their life more. Therefore, it can be argued that participatory approaches are not panacea in development. They have possibility to exploit assets of the poor more effectively if they are used in a wrong way by CSOs. The main aim of this essay is to evaluate the importance of CSOs in terms of participatory development. It will be examined whether they can successfully achieve participatory development, or their strings are pulled by donors’ buzzwords, which in turn proves to be detrimental to the life of the poor.

2. The Popularity of Participatory Development and CSOs

?. The Definition of Participatory Development

Initially, it has to be stated what participatory development is. From the bitter experience in which top-down approaches have not worked in the development, developmental agencies have changed their focus to bottom-up approaches. In other words, the people in developing countries are no longer the object of the projects but the subject of projects. By encouraging their involvement in decision-making processes that affect their life, the poor people can play a central role in the projects (Cooke B. 2001 p. 5). Through this activity, it is assumed that they can achieve empowerment through which they can control and manage their life for themselves. In this sense, it can be argued that the root of participatory development can be found out the Freirian concept of ‘conscientization’ that promote the self-awareness and provide them with the power to assert their voice (Rahman 1995 p.25). It seems that this theoretical concept of the ‘participation’ improved its shape to ‘participatory development’ mainly by the contribution of Robert Chambers. His concept, ‘the new professionalism’, requires practitioners to reverse their values (Chambers 1983 p. 169). In other words, the marginalized can choose how projects are implemented and resources are allocated. It is assumed that local people have unexpected capabilities for appraisal, analysis and planning of which practitioners are largely unaware (Chambers 1997 p. 131). Considering the diversity of developing countries, it can be said that it is difficult to achieve expected results without the participation of local people and their capacities. Therefore, it seems that participatory development is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition in development. This theoretical aspect of participatory development sound plausible and reasonable, but what has been done under the name of participatory development might be something different. This point will be analyzed later.

?. The rise of CSOs

Meanwhile, the failure of top-down approaches mainly implemented by the government required the development agenda alternative actors to alleviate poverty and the life of the poor. It was CSOs that were marked out for this mission (Rahman 1995 p. 25). While the government was regarded as ineffective, unresponsive and a corrupted actor, it was said that CSOs could provide services more effectively (Fowler 1995 p. 143), be more responsive to people’s needs and the vehicle to promote democratization (Covey 1995 p. 167). Consequently, both bilateral and multilateral donors started providing funds to CSOs instead of the government (Fowler 1995 p. 143). For instance, in the early 1970s, the income ration of funds from donors to NGOs was just 1.5%, whereas it reached to about 30% by the mid 1990s (Hulme 1997 p. 7). CSOs have come to the center of the development agenda at a breakneck rate.

Indeed, there are some case studies in which these new comers to the development agenda, in other words participatory development and CSOs, collaborate together to alleviate poverty and improve the life of the poor. For example, AKRSP has worked in western India since 1985 to create ‘an enabling environment to enable local communities to develop and manage their local natural resources …through their own local institutions’ (Shah 1995 p. 184). In practice, they have the communities that they serve to be assessed their performance in a participatory manner and decide future plan with the local people collaboratively (ibid p. 188). Through these activities, the local people can obtain the power to control their own life by performing the central role in the project. In this case, it can be argued that participatory development would not succeed without the support of AKRSP. However, as Rahman argues (1995 p. 30), this is not the case in many projects in which CSOs try to promote participation.

3. The Reality of Participatory Development and CSOs

As the example of AKRSP shows, CSOs have the possibility to achieve the empowerment of the local people and participatory development. However, what is important is whether that is always the case or not. The benefit of participatory development is theoretically clear as mentioned earlier, but it is quite difficult to carry out practically in the context in which the international donor agencies are dominant. Their priority is not poverty alleviation but economic growth (Rahman 1995 p. 28). It is clear considering the fact that the bulk of developing countries are under the condition of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). Moreover, even though CSOs have been much more popular by obtaining the massive funds from donors, their focus, priority and consequently projects tend to reflect donors’ preferences (Hulme 1997 p. 278; Covey 1995 p. 170). As Shah critically argued (1995 p. 184), the accountability of CSOs is mostly upwards and they have not created any effective mechanism to be accountable to the community that they serve. As a consequence, the marginalized people are just the object of the projects, which is the opposite to the statement mentioned in the definition of participatory development. As long as this is the case, it seems that CSOs cannot promote participation effectively, or, in the worst case, abuse ‘participatory development’ to conceal the donors’ economic-centric preferences.

Also, the meaning of participation has been changed by the erosive influence of mainstream thinking. The concept of participation has lost its radical meaning (Mosse 2001 p. 17; Cleaver 2001 p. 37; Rahman 1995 p. 26), and currently it is promoted because it corresponds with donors’ interests such as ‘greater productivity at lower cost, efficient mechanisms for service delivery, or reduced recurrent and maintenance costs’ (Mosse 2001 p. 17). The original shape of participation has gone somewhere else and another one is taking root into the soil of development. Donors proudly hold up ‘participatory development’ based on another definition of participation, and impose it on CSOs. CSOs have to obey it reluctantly, or it might be the case that they adopt with pleasure for patronage and reputation building (Mosse 2001 p. 29). As long as donors’ influence is dominant and affects CSOs considerably, it might be argued that CSOs play a central role to promote ‘participation’, but another one as mentioned above.

4. The Difficulty to Promote Participatory Development

Even if CSOs can manage the burdensome relationships with donors and find the room to manoeuvre, there would be other problems for them to achieve participatory development. Firstly, without cautious understanding of the power relations between outsiders and the local community, outsiders would construct frameworks of the projects unconsciously. In other words, the people’s needs gathered through PRA is significantly influenced by perceptions of what the outsiders can deliver (Mosse 2001 p. 21). No matter how careful the outsiders are about the transfer of decision-making process to the people who they serve, it is the outsiders who own the research tools, choose the topics, and record the information. Consequently, it is possible that the needs gained from the peoples’ voice are quite similar to what the outsiders expected them to say. It is often the case that true livelihood constraints would not be the same as the gathered information for action with change with external agents, and the outsiders usually ‘take account of technology availability and perceptions about which demands are likely to be considered legitimate’ (op cit). It is fair to say that ‘reversals’ and ‘new professionalism’ suggested by Chambers (1997) are quite a tricky concept for those who have got used to western-centric knowledge, value and norms.

Secondly, in launching participatory development, how to target the beneficiaries requires CSOs understanding the diverse characteristics of developing countries. From the western viewpoint, it is regarded that administrative and social boundaries are almost the same and the community has the solidarity to a certain degree, and this assumption is considerably common in development projects (Cleaver 2001 p. 44). However, this is not valid in the complex context of developing countries. In Zimbabwe, Cleaver was surprised how difficult it is to define a single community (ibid p. 45). It seems that most developmental projects have decided their target along administrative boundaries without taking account of social ones (ibid p. 44). Consequently, there is a danger that participatory development projects force different groups to collaborate together and cut existing links between groups based on social solidarity.

Lastly, related to the second point, without detailed knowledge about the structure of concerned communities, participatory approaches have the possibility to strengthen the existing hierarchy within them (Kothari 2001 p. 142). In this sense, simplistic dichotomy such as the rich and the poor would be problematic to help the marginalized people (ibid p. 140). Even in the poor community, hierarchy exists. Therefore, if the staff of CSOs cannot recognize this complicated power structure, they misunderstand that the voices of powerful people within the poor community reflect the local knowledge that is relevant to make an adequate plan, but disqualified as insignificant before. Power relation exists everywhere, not only at the macro-level but also micro-level too (ibid p. 141). Therefore, if CSOs try to reveal the truly oppressed people’s voice, they have to go beyond the conventional concept of power relation (ibid p. 144). It seems that the staff of CSOs should abandon formulaic and stereotyped approaches in the past, create informal and credible relationships with the people they serve, not mind spending much time for listening to and learning from them (Hailey 2001 p. 95).

5. Implications for CSOs

Considering the context in which CSOs have been the puppet of donors and participatory development has been misunderstood or distorted, it might fair to say that CSOs are facing difficulties to carry out participatory development, or, if they can, that is another type of participatory development created by donors. Nevertheless, there are some, no matter how few they are, exemplary cases in which CSOs have been able to play a central role in promoting participatory development. A common denominator among them is that CSOs in these cases do not proudly hold up participatory development, on the contrary, they have never used PRA or PLA in their projects (Hailey 2001 p. 100). As Chambers argues, ‘PRA has become an instant fad…Label has spread without substance’ (1997 p.211). The current development agenda is dominated by powerful international aid donors therefore it can be said that participatory approaches or development have been already co-opted into them (Rahman 1995 p. 26). If CSOs are willing to promote participatory development in a real sense, they have to avoid falling into the same trap.

However, that does not mean that CSOs have to abandon participatory approaches. To avoid adopting formulaic participatory approaches does not mean that participatory approaches themselves are wrong. They are just tools (Hailey 2001 p. 93), and outcomes from them depend on who use them. What CSOs have to do is to understand what is the concept of participation in the context of developing countries. As mentioned earlier, developing countries are considerably different from western countries in terms of culture, social structure, and so forth (Hailey 2001 p. 95). Each staff in CSOs has to try to improve their understanding of different value and norms, and their responsiveness to unexpected results from participatory approaches.

The most important key to the successful participatory development is ultimately the quality of those who are involved in the projects (Chambers 1997 p. 230). Chambers has recently criticized as ‘shaman’, but that does not disgrace the significance of his assertion. It is the time for the staff of CSOs to stop pursuing fashionable trends and to go back to the starting point of participation. As Chambers argues (1983 p. 202), ‘sitting, asking, and listening’ are essential, because they are not only methods but also attitude. ‘Sitting implies lack of hurry, patience, and humility; asking implies that the outsider is the student; and listening implies respect and learning’ (op cit). It seems that the staff of CSOs do not need to pay attention to fashionable concepts in development and what new words are coming from theoretical academic agenda. Theses three points by Chambers can be the best lessons for the staff of CSOs.

6. Conclusion

As long as CSOs keep their current position at which they can procure a great amount of funds from donors and cannot reject from donors’ inadequate requirement, CSOs cannot promote participatory development. If possible, they can expand another type of ‘participatory development’ newly defined by donors that has lost its original meaning. Also, participatory approaches require the staff of CSOs profound understanding of the communities they serve, especially power relations within them, and flexible responsiveness to unexpected results. Otherwise, participatory development by the CSOs would produce another hierarchy. As a result, the marginalized people would be much more unseen and unknown being.

The only way for CSOs to promote participatory development in a real sense is to wipe out the distorted concept of participation, and to go back to its original meaning. All staffs of CSOs have to rethink what participation means and how they can promote it. It seems that the primacy of personal suggested by Chambers (1983; 1997) is still impregnable. Without changing value and norms of CSOs’ staff, currently influenced by donor-centred development agenda, CSOs cannot promote participatory development. On the contrary, they would deteriorate the lives of marginalized poor peoples.

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