Participation Not Platitudes

 

Instability and violence have often stemmed from frustrations by the disaffected at not being able to participate in governance decisions and actions. Continued poor governance and the limited participation of people in the decisions of their governments, underscores the need for more participatory forms of government.   

 

In the Pacific there is general and longstanding recognition that the participation of often poor, marginalized groups in development is critical to ensure that resources are expended to meet the priorities, particularly of the poor, and to make sure that governments are accountable for their resource allocation decisions. But examples of exactly how Civil Society or Government can facilitate the effective participation of communities in government policy are rare. What we do have is a plethora of platitudes calling for more ‘people power’, but few clear, replicable examples of what participation looks like in practice.

 

Conceptually participation is often viewed as a ladder with low levels at one end and high levels at the other. Practically, in the case of communities, participation can be viewed as a long-term process. The governance programme at the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International (FSPI), based on participatory governance experiences in seven Pacific Island countries, sees the process of good governance and participation as having three pillars: empowerment, empathy and engagement.

 

With funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) FSPI and its partners in Fiji and Vanuatu, have just completed a regional technical assistance project (TA6175) that aims to empower communities to understand and work with government, to build empathy in government for the idea of working with Civil Society and communities and to engage governments and people in constructive dialogue and planning.

The project has used the Human rights training skills of the Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT), the participatory budgeting capacity of the Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy (ECREA) and the gender expertise of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) to produce a Training Manual to train trainers to work with communities to build their capacity to understand how government works and how to work with government. Two community information handbooks have been produced (one for each country) that provide communities with user friendly information ranging from what government is and how it works to who to contact for information on small grants or health. TA6175 has also been able to utilize the community development experience and expertise of Partners in Community Development Fiji (PCDF) and the Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprise ‘n’ Development (FRIEND) in Fiji and the Foundation of the South Pacific in Vanuatu (FSPV) to conduct participatory assessment and planning and participatory budgeting workshops with 30 communities in both countries. Each of these communities now has a community action plan and information and skills to help implement their priorities.

 

National and Local Governments have played an important role in the project providing resource persons, institutional support and importantly a commitment to working with NGOs and communities to incorporate community priorities into government planning and policy. The continued support of governments for a participatory approach to governance that listens to the voices of communities generally and women and youth particularly, is a key to sound development.

 

A key question to ask at the end of a project like this is: what happens next? Will the project continue indefinitely? Are the 30 participating communities empowered to proceed without help? Should they be? A salutary adage to remember is:  “take away the fertile soil of external intervention and participation withers on the vine”.

 

There is no magic bullet to sustainability, but there are certain elements worth mentioning. Sustainability depends on genuine partnership or collaboration between communities and institutions in which both parties are respectful of each others priorities and interests. External interventions with little ownership by recipients will indeed “whither on the vine”

 

One priority should be the promotion of self-reliance and autonomy. This is very often difficult in poor communities for whom projects are opportunities for ‘cargo’. A key to autonomy is the use of dynamic community members able to drive change beyond project interventions. TA6175 used community leaders drawn from village mayors, women’s associations and youth groups.

 

But the key to the effective and sustainable participation of people in governance is governments themselves. When the dust settles from projects and their successes remain as a dim memory, it is Pacific governments who remain. Their inclusion in projects as partners and the cultivation of capacity and empathy to engage with Civil society and communities in pursuit of inclusive and equitable development remain critical. For it is only through enlightened, empathetic governments working together with empowered communities in partnership with Civil Society that better living standards, good governance and political stability will be realised.