Knowledge Democracy
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Item Land and people No. 3, July-September 1988(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 1988-09) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)This report covers the third issue of Land and People, a PRIA newsletter on land ownership and alienation, published between July and September 1988. It opens with the Supreme Court's August 1988 ruling ordering the closure of limestone mines in the Doon Valley after nearly three decades of local resistance. It examines India's National Water Policy, questioning whether its emphasis on river-basin planning and large-scale groundwater recharge benefits marginal farmers or reinforces their exclusion. The focus article revisits land reform four decades after independence, highlighting the gap between legal provisions and the land held by small and tenant farmers. A review of Vijay Paranjpye's study of the Tehri Dam questions official estimates of economic returns, displacement, and ecological risks. It also reports on protests against the Narmada Valley Project in Bombay, a fast at the Sardar Sarovar dam site, and a march in North Bihar over recurring floods and drinking water scarcity. It concludes with a letter from Thailand's Project for Ecological Recovery on the shelving of the Nam Choan dam following sustained cross-border solidarity, and a report on the first International Rivers Network conference in San Francisco.Item Global Consortium of Knowledge-for-Change (K4C). September 16-17, 2019(2019-09-17) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)Item Knowledge democracy: Bridging knowledge cultures(2023-02-06) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)Item The story of participatory research: History and future(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2021-12-16) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)Item 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.