Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research

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Welcome to the Knowledge Democracy / Participatory Research Community. This community serves as a comprehensive repository of resources on participatory approaches, community-based research, and collaborative inquiry methods. Our mission is to foster knowledge sharing and support initiatives that empower communities to contribute to research, ensuring their voices shape the knowledge that impacts their lives.

Explore a wealth of materials, including case studies, policy papers, training guides, and research publications that highlight the practice and principles of participatory research worldwide.

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Author: search.filters.author.Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)Subject: search.filters.subject.Asia

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    Citizen report card: Citizen feedback for effective service delivery: An operational manual
    (Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2013) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
    Asia is urbanising at a pace faster than ever. The ever increasing population in the Asian cities and the consequent increase in demands for supply of basic services like housing, water, sanitation, health, education etc. pose enormous challenges to the urban local governance institutions. The existing capacities and resources of most urban local governance institutions are over stretched. The situation is exacerbated due to lack of governance reforms leading to enormous deficits in the transparency, accountability and citizen participation – the hallmarks of any democratic governance institutions. The engagement of civil society organisations (CSOs) is pivotal in making the urban local governance institutions transparent, accountable, responsive and participatory. However, the capacities of CSOs to engage and hold the urban local governance institutions are also limited. The project “Deepening Local Democratic Governance through Social Accountability in Asia” aimed to improve democratic practices in urban local governance institutions through social accountability for improving the provision of basic services to the most marginalised families in two Asian cities – Rajshahi in Bangladesh and Takhmao in Cambodia. The project was supported by the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) and was implemented by the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) in partnership with PRIP Trust, Bangladesh and SILAKA, Cambodia. It addressed the deficits of democratic practices, particularly the lack of citizen participation, transparency and accountability mechanisms in municipalities, due to which these institutions often fail to deliver services effectively and equitably and lack responsiveness towards the most marginalised. It made efforts to enhance organised citizen action and participation through mobilisation, capacity building, campaigns and participatory monitoring (using citizen report card and citizen monitoring methods) to ensure accountability. Its endeavours included enhancing citizens’ access to information and basic services by developing partnership with the elected municipalities to establish ‘models’ of social accountability mechanisms, particularly using citizen charters, pro-active information disclosures and public grievance redressal mechanisms. Having harvested the lessons from these interventions at the municipality level coupled with specific policy analysis at the sub-national and national levels, policy dialogues and policy oriented capacity building learning events were organised towards policy changes. It contributed to enhance capacities of local intermediary CSOs through training, exposure visits, on-site coaching and mentoring for implementing various social accountability approaches and tools and also influencing national and sub-national policies on urban governance issues. One of the critical outcomes of the intervention was to systematise the experience of implementing specific social accountability approaches, tools and methods so that the practitioners from CSOs as well as municipal officials could scale up, mainstream and institutionalise these practices elsewhere. Three operational manuals produced through this initiative are significant step towards these purposes. We sincerely hope that the practitioners from CSOs and officials from the municipalities will find these manuals handy and useful.
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    International perspectives on participatory monitoring and evaluation
    (Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2009-11-25) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
    This paper developed by PRIA presents international perspectives on participatory monitoring and evaluation, examining its origin, and analysing the principles, methods, and practices that define it. The historical roots of Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation are traced to the emergence of participatory research which was influenced by practices of adult educators, and critiqued traditional social science methodologies that devalued popular knowledge and perpetuated elite control over knowledge production. The paper contrasts conventional forms of monitoring and evaluation with participatory forms and discusses the objectives and principles of Participatory M&E. It also outlines core steps in developing Participatory monitoring and evaluation, from identifying stakeholders to collecting information, analysis, and using results, and examines some objectives of innovative participatory techniques. Further, four case studies are used to illustrate participatory monitoring and evaluation in practice. The paper concludes by asking some important questions for proper establishment of participatory monitoring processes such as what information is needed, who will collect it, how it will be collected, and how findings will be used.

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