Participatory Evaluation Forum - Refocus Institute: Actual Participation Improves Governance

By: Cindy Banyai, Ph.D.

I just came across a brilliant blog from WhyDev about the overused and essentially meaningless lexicon in development. The two areas that hit closest to home for me were their ribbing on "participation" and "capacity building" -- areas that I feel I am an "expert."

The article points to another buzzword diatribe, AidSpeak, and cites the definition of participation as “the right to agree with preconceived projects or programs.” This amusing observation is often de rigeur in development (in the US and abroad) and is the sad truth of this overused word. In fact, in my town of Fort Myers while scouring the city's  website and discussing matters with the mayor, the only use of "participation" came in the form of a call to action from the police to provide tips in ongoing investigations. With the mayor touting "this campaign works very well." 

Other conceptualizations of participation in Fort Myers are much as AipSpeak laments -- public meetings and comment periods that only draw the attention of zealots and activists and they are always commenting on a plan that is 99% percent complete. This results in the plan either being adopted or scrapped altogether, a completely wasteful use of government resources. 

Considering this example, we can look at how participatory practices, particularly in the planning phases, can reduce government waste. In general, administrators cringe at the thought of incorporating participation in planning because it makes their job more difficult. However, a little more planning on the lead end makes for less plans being scrapped in later stages because of public outcry or general unsuitability.

And for the record, when I say participation, I mean actually getting people to formulate a vision and steps to achieve it, making them stakeholders in the entire process (channeling David Fetterman's empowerment evaluation). Not, as participation is so practically invoked, making a plan then asking people what they think just before (or after) implementation. This is not good participatory practice and it violates sound evaluation principles.

I'll have to go on about capacity building another day...