Participation ladder, according to Arnstein (1969) is how members of the society get to be involved in decision making as well as community projects ranging from high to low. The ladder is said to be the guide to see who has power when important decisions are being made. In her journal, Sherry R. Arnstein’s “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” Journal of the American Planning Association she shows that there are eight stages and these are; manipulation, therapy, informing, consultation, placation, partnership, delegation and citizen control. It is important for social community workers to include or involve members of the community in decision making for development purposes. The purpose of the essay below is to show the importance of citizen participation in developing communities.
Community participation is important because it leads to self-reliance when it comes to problem solving as well as making of decisions. This broad term covers a wide range of benefits which participation can bring. Participation helps to break the mentality of dependence which characterizes much development work and instead it promotes self-awareness and confidence, making people examine their problems and to think positively about solutions therefore, with the active participation or involvement of the local people, the mentality of dependency can be broken as well to increase their awareness, self-confidence and control of the development process. This means that people or community members will no longer need to consult professionals to make decisions for them and this leads to development of the community.
Another aspect of participation that is of much importance to consider is efficiency. Participation brings about a greater chance that resources available to development projects will be used more efficiently. Participation, for example can help reduce misunderstandings or possible disagreements and thus the time and energy often spent by professional staff explaining people of a project benefits can be reduced.
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To add on, participation is also important in developing communities because it makes projects more effective. Participation will also make projects more effective as instruments of development projects are always external mechanisms which are supposed to benefit the people of a particular area. Participation allows these people to have a voice in determining objectives, support project administration and to make their local knowledge, skills and resources available must result in more effective projects. A major reason why many projects have not been effective objectives in the past is because local people were not involved .Effectiveness equals the successful realization of objectives and participation can hold to ensure this, Crook and Manor (1998). People’s participation can make projects more effective as they are granted a say in deciding the objectives and strategies as well as participating in the implementation of the plan, and this ensures an efficient utilization of the resources available.
Moreover, Lancaster (2002) points out the importance of community participation as the approach that helps the project to be sustainable as communities themselves learn how to adopt and correct changes resulting from the project, partnership or participation helps to protect the interests of the people concerned, it enhances self-respect and self-reliance among people, that is, they are enabled to obtain and do this by themselves. Communities become aware of the project implementation as they have a great store of wisdom and skills as well as the knowledge. They understand their local needs and the nature of new project which they should achieve. They can easily spread the new knowledge they acquired to other communities and therefore cause a rapid increase in growth of the new idea.
Participation promotes a sense of ownership among the community of equipment used in the project and even the project itself. For example, they will protect and maintain the projects through their own means like dispensary buildings, water pumps, school buildings as well as cooperative gardens. This is usually the point of the participation ladder where citizen control is reached as members of the community will be dominating the ongoing projects and making decisions that are necessary thereby developing the community.
Extensive collected work research has identified the importance of community participation in development projects since it is broadly accepted that community participation is one of the key ingredients to an empowered community. Community participation is much more of a requirement as it is a condition for success studies have documented that communities that engage their citizens and partners deeply in the work of community development raise more resources, achieve more results, and develop in a more holistic and ultimately beneficial way. Community participation then, is critical to community success Norman (2000). It is believed that participation ensures success as people get involved when they have a sense of ownership of project and feel that the project meets their needs. This makes them willingly supervise construction and then take care of the facilities to ensure their sustainability, Tacconi and Tisdell (1992). In addition it is suggested that participation can lead to greater community empowerment in the form of strengthened local organizations, a greater sense of pride and the undertaking of new activities, Oakley (1991).
In addition, White (1981) identified a number of beneficial reasons for community participation. These include the fact that with participation, more is likely to be accomplished and services can be provided more cheaply. This is because the community will be willing to work towards a project or offer or provide labor at a lower or no cost as they believe that the project is theirs and it is there to sustain their lives.
Participation also has an intrinsic value for participant as it is a catalyst for further development and it also encourages a sense of responsibility. Ensures things are done the right way. There is no room for mistakes as people will be working together and everyone is likely to be micro-managing the department they are working in as there may be division of labor. Participation also uses valuable indigenous knowledge as community members have a great knowledge about their environment. It frees people from dependence on others’ skill and makes people more aware of the causes of their deficiency and what they can do about it.
Curry (1993) identified that policies that are complex to local conditions will not only be more effective in taking the individuality of local social structure, economy, environmental and culture into account but also through the involvement of the local community, it is more likely to be successful in their implementation. Communities that have a say in the development of policies for their locality are much more likely to be passionate about their implementation, Curry (1993). Golooba Mutebi (2004) found that participation has a role in enhancing community awareness and political maturity that makes those in office answerable.
Moreover, Chamala (1995) identified efficiency benefits from participation stating that involving stakeholders and empowering community participants in programs at all levels of the participation ladder from lower to higher level provide a more effective path for solving sustainable resource management issues. Participation enhances project effectiveness through community ownership of development efforts and aids decision-making, Kelly and Van Vlaenderen (1995) and Kolavalli and Kerr (2002). Price and Mylius (1991) also identified local ownership of a project or program as a key to generating motivation for ecologically sustainable activities. The authors also identify the role of community participation in circulating information amongst a community, particularly local knowledge that leads to better facilitation of action, Price and Mylius (1991). It is also identified that participation results in learning and learning is often a requirement for changing performance and practices.
However, in demonstrating the limitations of participation, Mosse (2001) argues that participation no longer has the fundamental meanings it once had. Cleaver (2001) also argues that participation has become an act of assurance that people believe in and hardly ever question. The implication therefore is that despite being exaggerated by its proponents, participation does not always lead to the claimed benefits.
While participation is important for the integration of local knowledge in development initiatives, Mosse (2001) argues against this conception by challenging that local knowledge is simply a reflection of local power relations such that what is considered to be local knowledge is just a construction of the planning context that covers a complex micro-politics of knowledge production and used in local communities. Mosse (2001) justifies this by insisting on the public character of participation and also on its open-endedness. These characteristics of participation facilitate the control of knowledge by powerful people. Thus, participation while expressed as the view of the poor or relegated people, in reality this knowledge is manipulated by power relationships. This brings in Arnstein’s first step on the ladder of participation where participation is equal to manipulation of the locals. At this juncture, the locals are just used by development specialists. This implies that negotiations that take place in participatory domes and claim to produce local knowledge are never between equals as some people for example women and children and other issues like gender relations and class get suppressed. As a consequence, what is claimed to be local knowledge is simply views of the minority powerful local leaders who can easily takeover participatory processes.
Furthermore, Mosse (2001) questions the argument that participation can lead to local people’s empowerment, more so that of the relegated. This is because participatory methodologies fail to change and challenge the official, centralized and administrative structures in implementing organizations that control decision-making and resource allocation that even exclude participation. Organizational staff in such structures and systems ignore people’s involvement because of the existence of complex technical procedures and one-way, top-down planning performed exclusively by professionals that delay genuine participation. Cornwall and Pratt (2010) also argue that the practices seem not to be empowering, mainly in a collective sense as it is just used for extracting information of which this is a wrong application and is not supposed to be the case. This is complemented by Arnstein’s argument that on the lower rungs of the ladder of participation, what is claimed to be participation is actually non-participation. This is because the locals are manipulated and just used for authorizing or just for purposes of engineering their support. Thus, participation here is turned into a public relations exercise, Arnstein (1969) for the implementing organization thereby replacing genuine participation.
Also, participation with the very poor is much more difficult since project staff are in a hurry to complete their projects and achieve outcomes. This allows implementing agencies to pay much attention to donors and funders hence participation is just for legitimization of the organization’s agenda, Mosse (2001) and is used as a means to an end by different organizations leading to manipulation. There is also the danger that people may only participate to take advantage of participating in a project for instance, in return for cash, food or any other material incentives. This has an effect on beneficiary validation as people will remain dependent on the activities of the implementing agency and therefore unable to become self-reliant due to lack of empowerment.
Conclusively, community participation is of much importance for developing communities as it leads to their empowerment and independency, but, is also important to take note of the fact that the participation of many people in decision making is time consuming and it may take long before implementation.
References
- Claridge, T., 2004. Designing social capital sensitive participation methodologies. Report, Social Capital Research, Brisbane, Australia.
- Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A Ladder of Citizen Participation, JAIP
- Cornwall, A., (2008) Unpacking ‘Participation’: models, meanings and practices, community Development Journal
- Mosse, D., (2001) People’s knowledge, Participation and Patronage: Operations and Representations in Rural Development”
- Cleaver, F., 2001. Institutions, agency and the limitations of participatory approaches to development. Participation: The new tyranny.
- Golooba‐Mutebi, F., 2004. Reassessing popular participation in Uganda. Public administration and development: the international journal of management research and practice.
- White, A.T., 1981. Project for the Development of a Community Participation Component in the Tanzanian Rural Water Supply Programme. Draft Interim Report. International Reference Centre for Community Water Supply and Sanitation, Netherlands. Other Sources.
- Cornwall, A. and Pratt, G., 2011. The use and abuse of participatory rural appraisal: reflections from practice. Agriculture and human values.
- Chamala, S., 1995. Group effectiveness: From group extension methods to participative community Landcare groups. Participative Approaches for Landcare: Perspectives, Policies, Programs.
- Price, S. and Mylius, B., 1991. Social Analysis and Community Participation: Guidelines and Activity Cycle Checklist. Appraisal, Evaluation and Sectoral Studies Branch, Australian International Development Assistance Bureau.
