Assessing Participation in a Development Project

Abstract

How effective is development? What is the impact of a development programme on people's lives? The true answers to such questions emerge from within the community, which have been the central concern of development following the refocussing of the development strategies in the mid 1970s. There has been an increasing concern within the development community to promote effective effective people's participation in order to improve the distribution of benefits of development and to re-emphasise development as a process concerning people. Arguments in the favour of promoting people's participation are both convincing and realistic. If we look at development as a process, then the local communities are the actors. A real assessment of development can be made if we can assess participation in the development programme. The communities should be self-reliant and able to manage themselves, so that their economic and social conditions can improve through collective action. In a true meaning development should envisage to improve upon the capacity (skills & resources) of the community to design, manage and implement development activities. If a development programme focusses into these aspects, then we can get the answer to above questions.