George Washington University

This paper explores the institutional obstacles for making community participation the cornerstone of aid programmes. Author Silvio Waisbord observes that a wide range of aid actions are often justified on the grounds of participatory ideals - where local forms of knowledge, collective action, communication, rights, democracy, empowerment, etc. are at the centre - but that the reality is often quite different. Waisbord diverges from arguments that aid programmes incorporate a "watered-down" version of participation, fueled by "Machiavellian minds at work" who are manipulating participation "as a ploy to evoke sympathy or justify goals. Instead, he suggests that organisational procedures, imperatives, and cultures explain the disconnect between the high presence of participation in institutional speech and the low priority in actual programmes.

Specifically, Waisbord argues that 3 reasons account for the gap between discourse and practice:

1. Participation clashes with bureaucratic rationality - "...Agencies and donors wield unmatched power in defining goals, budgets, management and the overall direction of programmes....Bureaucratic efficiency defines expectations about 'success' that are separate from participation. Furthermore, because participation contains the possibility of unexpected occurrences, it potentially can derail bureaucratic procedures....Participation contemplates the possibility that communities may question problem assessments produced by international agencies or governments, and/or dispute control over programmatic goals...Participation may interfere with the normal functioning of time-bound procedures, such as contracts, programme design, scheduling, implementation and funding....Short-term attention to institutional and individual priorities runs counter to the long duration of social change..."
2. Participation runs contrary to the technical, experts-dominated mindset of aid agencies - "...Aid agencies are staffed and headed by health, economic and agricultural experts for whom challenges require technical diagnoses and solutions rooted in their particular fields. Questions asked and solutions offered are rooted in technical expertise and specific models within their sciences....Community participation falls outside conventional technical expertise and the professional 'comfort zone' of aid institutions....With its defence of lay knowledge and championing of the ideas of non-experts, participation fits uneasily in institutions dominated by disciplines that embody the scientific paradigm....At best, participation is seen as an accessory to achieve goals..."
3. Participation is essentially about politics, which puts aid programmes in an uncomfortable position - "...On the one hand, politics is inseparable from aid programmes....A mix of political and geopolitical concerns, the domestic politics of donor countries, the political preferences of private foundations and charity sentiments underpin development programmes....On the other hand, programmes carefully avoid local politics....Development programmes justify goals and actions on the basis of technical rationality rather than politics....Participation is the square peg in the round hole of institutions that are wary of facing local politics head-on. It introduces the prospect of conflicts generated by rural communities questioning programmes that benefit urban elites, women demanding power, youth rejecting decisions their elders make or communities criticising decisions that favour specific religious and ethnic groups. Avoiding getting enmeshed in local politics is mandatory to ensure that programmes run smoothly, avoid alienating local partners and prevent unwanted controversies that only bring headaches....What falls by the wayside with the prevalence of a non-political mindset is that 'development' is inescapably political. It's not merely a technical process. Rather, it's a messy and unpredictable..."

Waisbord concludes that actors committed to reforming aid need to examine how local participation can be institutionalised, given all these obstacles. He stresses that "[i]n aid agencies embedded in technical, scientific knowledge, institutionalising ideas such as participatory politics and the value of 'local knowledge' is tantamount to an intellectual revolution." Rather than resign to the challenges this shift poses, or to continue promoting the virtues of participation, Waisbord suggests that we look to cases in which successful local participation has proven to be possible (e.g., the recent achievements of health advocacy groups, social movements, women's cooperatives, micro-credit initiatives, local education initiatives, and others). In short, we must find ways to institutionalise participation in agencies oriented by a different set of bureaucratic priorities and technical approaches.

Mazi 17, from the Communication for Social Change (CFSC) Consortium.