Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries

Influenced by Amartya Sen, over the last decade, The World Bank has allocated nearly US$80 billion to local participatory development projects targeting poverty, improved public service delivery, and strengthened social cohesion and government accountability. But the success of these programs is hin...

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Main Authors:	Mansuri, Ghazala, Rao, Vijayendra
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	Taylor and Francis 2013
Subjects:	participatory development decentralization deliberative democracy empowerment political voice
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13394

id	okr-10986-13394
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-133942021-04-23T14:03:08Z Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries Mansuri, Ghazala Rao, Vijayendra participatory development decentralization deliberative democracy empowerment political voice Influenced by Amartya Sen, over the last decade, The World Bank has allocated nearly US$80 billion to local participatory development projects targeting poverty, improved public service delivery, and strengthened social cohesion and government accountability. But the success of these programs is hindered by both endogenous local factors and flawed program design and implementation. Two especially important local obstacles are (1) entrenched interests of political agents, civil bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with either incentives to resist or capabilities to appropriate program resources, and (2) poverty and illiteracy, as the poor and illiterate participate less and benefit less from participatory projects than do the wealthier, more educated, and more connected. After reviewing hundreds of participatory projects, three lessons are clear for program planning. First, contextual factors like inequality, history, geography, and political systems (among others) are important. Second, communities do not necessarily have a ready stock of ‘social capital’ to mobilize. Third, induced participatory interventions work best when supported by a responsive state – donors cannot substitute for a non-functional state, and successful programs combine enlightened state action from above with social mobilization from below. Future participatory development projects would benefit substantially from revised planning and considerably more attention paid to evaluation and monitoring. Project managers have historically paid little attention to context, monitoring, or evaluation, in part because The World Bank’s operational policies did not provide incentives to do so. Donor agencies should also exercise greater patience and allow for flexible, long-term engagement to facilitate contextual and programmatic learning, including learning from failure. 2013-05-13T18:48:37Z 2013-05-13T18:48:37Z 2013-04-08 Journal Article Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 1369-8230 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13394 en_US Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy;16(2) CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ World Bank Taylor and Francis Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	participatory development decentralization deliberative democracy empowerment political voice
spellingShingle	participatory development decentralization deliberative democracy empowerment political voice Mansuri, Ghazala Rao, Vijayendra Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries
relation	Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy;16(2)
description	Influenced by Amartya Sen, over the last decade, The World Bank has allocated nearly US$80 billion to local participatory development projects targeting poverty, improved public service delivery, and strengthened social cohesion and government accountability. But the success of these programs is hindered by both endogenous local factors and flawed program design and implementation. Two especially important local obstacles are (1) entrenched interests of political agents, civil bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with either incentives to resist or capabilities to appropriate program resources, and (2) poverty and illiteracy, as the poor and illiterate participate less and benefit less from participatory projects than do the wealthier, more educated, and more connected. After reviewing hundreds of participatory projects, three lessons are clear for program planning. First, contextual factors like inequality, history, geography, and political systems (among others) are important. Second, communities do not necessarily have a ready stock of ‘social capital’ to mobilize. Third, induced participatory interventions work best when supported by a responsive state – donors cannot substitute for a non-functional state, and successful programs combine enlightened state action from above with social mobilization from below. Future participatory development projects would benefit substantially from revised planning and considerably more attention paid to evaluation and monitoring. Project managers have historically paid little attention to context, monitoring, or evaluation, in part because The World Bank’s operational policies did not provide incentives to do so. Donor agencies should also exercise greater patience and allow for flexible, long-term engagement to facilitate contextual and programmatic learning, including learning from failure.
format	Journal Article
author	Mansuri, Ghazala Rao, Vijayendra
author_facet	Mansuri, Ghazala Rao, Vijayendra
author_sort	Mansuri, Ghazala
title	Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries
title_short	Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries
title_full	Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries
title_fullStr	Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries
title_full_unstemmed	Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries
title_sort	can participation be induced? some evidence from developing countries
publisher	Taylor and Francis
publishDate	2013
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13394
_version_	1764423416812666880

Can Participation Be Induced? Some Evidence from Developing Countries

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