Participatory Learning for Integrated Farming:-3

(.... After 2 nd post).

Recent growth in interest in participation

There is a long history of participation in agricultural development, and a wide range of development agencies, both national and international, have attempted to involve people in some aspect of planning and implementation. Two overlapping schools of thought and practice have evolved. One views participation as a means to increase efficiency, the central notion being that if people are involved, then they are more likely to agree with and support the new development or service. The other sees participation as a fundamental right, in which the main aim is to initiate mobilization for collective action, empowerment and institution building.

In recent years, there have been an increasing number of comparative studies of development projects showing that ‘participation’ is one of the critical components of success. It has been associated with increased mobilization of stakeholder ownership of policies and projects; greater efficiency, understanding and social cohesion; more cost-effective services; greater transparency and accountability; increased empowering of the poor and disadvantaged; and strengthened capacity of people to learn and act (Cernea, 1991; Pretty and Sandbrook, 1991; Uphoff, 1992; Narayan, 1993, 1995; World Bank, 1994; Pretty, 1995a, b; Thompson, 1995).

As a result, the terms ‘people's participation’ and ‘popular participation’ have become part of the normal language of many development agencies, including NGOs, government departments and banks (Adnan et al, 1992). It is such a fashion that almost everyone says that participation is part of their work. This has created many paradoxes. The term `participation’ has been used to justify the extension of control of the state as well as to build local capacity and self-reliance; it has been used to justify external decisions as well as to devolve power and decision-making away from external agencies; it has been used for data collection as well as for interactive analysis.

In conventional rural development, participation has commonly centred on encouraging local people to sell their labour in return for food, cash or materials. Yet these material incentives distort perceptions, create dependencies, and give the misleading impression that local people are supportive of externally-driven initiatives. This paternalism undermines sustainability goals and produces impacts which rarely persist once the project ceases (Bunch, 1983; Reij, 1988; Pretty and Shah, 1994; Kerr, 1994). Despite this, development programmes continue to justify subsidies and incentives, on the grounds that they are faster, that they can win over more people, or they provide a mechanism for disbursing food to poor people. When little effort is made to build local skills, interests and capacity, then local people have no stake in maintaining structures or practices once the flow of incentives stops.

The many ways that development organisations interpret and use the term participation can be resolved into seven clear types. These range from manipulative and passive participation, where people are told what is to happen and act out predetermined roles, to self-mobilization, where people take initiatives largely independent of external institutions (Table 1).

Table 1. A typology of participation: how people participate in development programmes and projects

Typology	Characteristics of Each Type
1. Manipulative Participation	Participation is simply a pretence, with ‘people's' representatives on official boards but who are unelected and have no power.
2. Passive Participation	People participate by being told what has been decided or has already happened. It involves unilateral announcements by an administration or project management without any listening to people's responses. The information being shared belongs only to external professionals.
3. Participation by Consultation	People participate by being consulted or by answering questions. External agents define problems and information gathering processes, and so control analysis. Such a consultative process does not concede any share in decision-making, and professionals are under no obligation to take on board people's views.
4. Participation for Material Incentives	People participate by contributing resources, for example labour, in return for food, cash or other material incentives. Farmers may provide the fields and labour, but are involved in neither experimentation nor the process of learning. It is very common to see this called participation, yet people have no stake in prolonging technologies or practices when the incentives end.
5. Functional Participation	Participation seen by external agencies as a means to achieve project goals, especially reduced costs. People may participate by forming groups to meet predetermined objectives related to the project. Such involvement may be interactive and involve shared decision making, but tends to arise only after major decisions have already been made by external agents. At worst, local people may still only be coopted to serve external goals.
6. Interactive Participation	People participate in joint analysis, development of action plans and formation or strengthening of local institutions. Participation is seen as a right, not just the means to achieve project goals. The process involves interdisciplinary methodologies that seek multiple perspectives and make use of systemic and structured learning processes. As groups take control over local decisions and determine how available resources are used, so they have a stake in maintaining structures or practices.
7. Self-Mobilization	People participate by taking initiatives independently of external institutions to change systems. They develop contacts with external institutions for resources and technical advice they need, but retain control over how resources are used. Self-mobilization can spread if governments and NGOs provide an enabling framework of support. Such self-initiated mobilization may or may not challenge existing distributions of wealth and power.

Source: Pretty, 1995a

This typology suggests that the term ‘participation’ should not be accepted without appropriate clarification. The problem with participation as used in types one to four is that any achievements are likely to have no positive lasting effect on people's lives (Rahnema, 1992). The term participation can be used, knowing it will not lead to action. Indeed, some suggest that the manipulation that is often central to types one to four mean they should be seen as types of non-participation (Hart, 1992).

The World Bank's internal ‘Learning Group on Participatory Development', in seeking to clarify the benefits and costs of participation, distinguished between different types of participation: "many Bank activities which are termed ‘participatory' do not conform to [our] definition, because they provide stakeholders with little or no influence, such as when [they] are involved simply as passive recipients, informants or labourers in a development effort" (World Bank, 1994).

Another study of 121 rural water supply projects in 49 countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America found that participation was the most significant factor contributing to project effectiveness and maintenance of water systems (Narayan, 1993). Most of the projects referred to community participation or made it a specific project component, but only 21% scored high on interactive participation. Clearly, intentions did not translate into practice. It was when people were involved in decision-making during all stages of the project, from design to maintenance, that the best results occurred. If they were just involved in information sharing and consultations, then results were much poorer. According to the analysis, it was clear that moving down the typology moved a project from a medium to highly effective category.

Great care must, therefore, be taken over both using and interpreting the term participation. It should always be qualified by reference to thetype of participation, as most types will threaten rather than support the goals of sustainable agriculture. What will be important is for institutions and individuals to define better ways of shifting from the more common passive, consultative and incentive-driven participation towards the interactive end of the spectrum.

 Alternative systems of participatory learning and action

Recent years have seen a rapid expansion in new participatory methods and approaches to learning in the context of agricultural development (see PLA Notes (formerly RRA Notes), 1988-present; PALM Series, 1991-present; Pretty et al, 1995; IDS/IIED, 1994; Chambers, 1994a, b, c; Mascarenhas et al, 1991). Many have been drawn from a wide range of non-agricultural contexts, and were adapted to new needs. Others are innovations arising out of situations where practitioners have applied the methods in a new setting, the context and people themselves giving rise to the novelty.

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Bismark Bangali
BSC  in Agrotechnology

  Khulna University.