Posted November 1997

Participation in practise Lessons from the FAO People's Participation Programme

The limits of "conventional" projects How do some conventional projects discriminate against the poor? A classic example comes from Nigeria, where a large scale agricultural development project channeled assistance to "progressive" farmers and chose to work through the existing socio-economic structure, assuming that this would win local cooperation. Result: subsidized credit to buy tractors and pay for labour and fertilizer helped to create a small class of "overnight farmers", mainly wealthy city dwellers. Most inputs went to richer landowners, while subsidized fertilizer encouraged farmers to abandon traditional manuring practices. And none of this led to production increases: per hectare yields of staple crops was the same for project participants and non-participants.

What has gone wrong? Recent years have seen growing criticism of rural development strategies followed, with only minor adjustments, since the 1960s. These conventional strategies have seen development primarily as a series of technical transfers aimed at boosting production and generating wealth. In practice, conventional projects usually target medium to large scale "progressive" producers, supporting them with technology, credit and extension advice in the hope that improvements will gradually extend to more "backward" strata of rural society. In many cases, however, the channeling of development assistance to the better-off has led to concentration of land and capital, marginalization of small farmers and alarming growth in the number of landless labourers.

The basic fault in the conventional approach is that the rural poor are rarely consulted in development planning and usually have no active role in development activities. This is because the vast majority of the poor have no organizational structure to represent their interests. Isolated, undereducated and often dependent on rural elites, they lack the means to win greater access to resources and markets, and to prevent the imposition of unworkable programmes or technologies. The lesson is clear: unless the rural poor are given the means to participate fully in development, they will continue to be excluded from its benefits. This realization is provoking new interest in an alternative rural development strategy, that of people's participation through organizations controlled and financed by the poor.

WCARRD declared that participation by rural people in the institutions that govern their lives is a basic human right. If rural development was to realize its potential, the Conference said, disadvantaged rural people had to be organized and actively involved in designing policies and programmes and in controlling social and economic institutions. WCARRD saw a close link between participation and voluntary, autonomous and democratic organizations representing the poor. It called on development agencies to work in close cooperation with organizations of intended beneficiaries, and proposed that assistance be channeled through small farmer and peasant groups.

The experience of PPP has demonstrated that true participation is possible only when the rural poor are able to pool their efforts and resources in pursuit of objectives they set for themselves. The most efficient means for achieving this objective, FAO has found, are small, democratic and informal groups composed of eight to 15 like-minded farmers. For governments and development agencies, people's participation through small groups offers distinct advantages:

• Economies of scale. The high cost of providing development services to scattered, small scale producers is a major constraint on poverty-oriented programmes. Participatory groups constitute a grassroots "receiving system" that allows development agencies to reduce the unit delivery or transaction costs of their services, thus broadening their impact.

• Higher productivity. Given access to resources and a guarantee that they will share fully in the benefits of their efforts, the poor become more receptive to new technologies and services, and achieve higher levels of production and income. This helps to build net cash surpluses that strengthen the groups' economic base and contribute to rural capital formation.

• Reduced costs and increased efficiency. The poor's contribution to project planning and implementation represent savings that reduce project costs. The poor also contribute their knowledge of local conditions, facilitating the diagnosis of environmental, social and institutional constraints, as well as the search for solutions.

• Building of democratic organizations. The limited size and informality of small groups is suited to the poor's scarce organizational experience and low literacy levels. Moreover, the small group environment is ideal for the diffusion of collective decision-making and leadership skills, which can be used in the subsequent development of inter-group federations.

• Sustainablility. Participatory development leads to increased self-reliance among the poor and the establishment of a network of self-sustaining rural organizations. This carries important benefits: the greater efficiency of development services stimulates economic growth in rural areas and broadens domestic markets, thus favouring balanced national development; politically, participatory approaches provide opportunities for the poor to contribute constructively to development.

The pivotal role of people's participation in development is now re-emerging in economic and social development thinking. One striking example of this trend comes from the World Bank. In its proposed strategy for sustainable development in Africa, the Bank calls for a "people-centred" approach that will improve the poor's access to productive assets, allow them to participate in designing and implementing development programmes, and foster their involvement in institutions from village to national level. UNICEF has proposed similar measures in its strategy for structural adjustment "with a human face", stressing people's participation in the formulation of development policy, and efforts to make full use of local potential. FAO believes that the participatory approach described in the following pages will be an essential part of any strategy to meet the challenges ahead.

The first PPP project was launched in Sierra Leone in 1982. Later, other projects were implemented in Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In all, more than 13,000 people have actively participated in PPP; including their household dependents, beneficiaries totaled more than 80,000 people.

• Focus on the rural poor. PPP beneficiaries included immigrant settlers in Zimbabwe, artisanal fishing communities in Tanzania and subsistence farmers in Ghana, Nicaragua and Thailand. In Lesotho and Swaziland most participants were female household heads, one of the poorest strata in rural society.

• Promotion of women in development. About 5,000 women - or 37% of all participants - were actively involved in PPP projects. While their involvement was weak in some countries, women made up more than seven out of every 10 participants in Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia.

• Small groups. The key element in PPP is the formation of small homogeneous self-help groups. More than 1,000 such groups with average membership of 12 persons were formed, almost a third of them in Ghana and Sri Lanka. In other countries the number of groups ranged from 18 to 90. Groups were run democratically, with members holding regular meetings and electing their leaders. This group approach facilitated farmers' access to credit, extension and other services.

• Implementing agencies. Government ministries or semi-government institutions had responsibility for implementing projects in Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Zambia and Zimbabwe. FAO believes, however, that NGOs can make an important contribution. With government agreement, NGOs were appointed as implementing agencies in Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho and Nicaragua.

• Coordinating committees. To maximize efficiency in use of resources and promote better understanding of PPP, FAO encouraged the formation of project-level and national-level coordinating committees. At field level, these consisted of beneficiaries, project staff and administrators who guide project implementation. At national level, representatives of government ministries, NGOs and FAO monitored project performance.

• National project staff. All project coordinators were nationals trained by FAO. Each project coordinator was recruited directly by the implementing agency, usually from the ranks of government services. Project coordinators included extension officers, economists and youth workers.

• Group promoters (GPs). Some 130 GPs were selected and trained to assist in PPP group development and in linking groups to government services. While most GPs were agricultural extension agents, school teachers or secondary school graduates, the Programme encouraged the recruitment of "second-generation" GPs from among PPP members.

• Income-generation. Encouraged by their GPs and assisted by government services, PPP members undertook additional income-generating activities to build up and diversify their economic base. The majority of groups were engaged in staple food and animal production, coming together on individual members' plots or group farms for land preparation, planting and harvesting. Many groups marketed their produce in bulk.

• Group savings. An important objective of PPP was to mobilize group savings to serve as additional credit, cover loan defaults and build up the members' capital base. At one point, PPP participants - most of whom had no previous experience of saving with banks - had saved a total of $68,000.

• Group credit. To facilitate credit for PPP groups, FAO covered the banks' risk of loan defaults with a Credit Guarantee Fund held at lending institutions. Thanks to these arrangements, PPP groups received annually a total of $350,000 in loans, an average of $324 per group. PPP loan repayment rates were generally much higher than those recorded by "low-cost" credit programmes for small farmers.

• Training. High priority was given to improving the organizational and production skills of PPP members, mainly through small field workshops. Training was usually conducted by government extensionists at the request of project staff or groups. It covered a wide field, including project planning, recordkeeping, food storage, animal rearing and soil conservation.

• Participatory monitoring and evaluation. Group members participated fully in action research connected to the project, and in monitoring and evaluation of project activities.

• Self-reliance. Once groups began to consolidate their economic base, they were urged to increase their self-reliance in preparation for the withdrawal of their GPs and of FAO assistance. Self-reliance was stressed through training, savings mobilization and consolidation of PPP groups in self-governing umbrella organizations serving their wider interests. Some 121 inter-group federations were formed, along with loan committees that process loan requests and distribute credit.

• to identify rural areas where the majority of the population is poor
• to select project action areas and, within them, village clusters where group formation will begin
• to identify poor inhabitants who may wish to participate in the project
• to identify the poor's development needs.

Planners can make a fairly accurate delineation of impoverished areas through discussions with rural administrators and a rapid analysis of existing data sources, including population censuses, household surveys and production statistics for different geographic areas.

How PPP areas were chosen Planners used a range of criteria in selecting PPP project areas and villages. In Thailand, project areas were identified after a review of statistical data on relative poverty. Once the project began, group promoters collected detailed information through a community level survey, followed by a household survey to identify poor families and their needs.In Zambia, a PPP project was sited in one of the country's poorest regions. Provincial authorities chose two districts as project areas mainly because well-qualified staff were available locally. Project villages were selected in consultation with local leaders and agricultural extensionists. In Kenya, the implementing agency selected villages where farmers' groups were already operating.

Once poor areas have been identified, planners need to select from among them areas suitable for participatory development projects. Here, somewhat different considerations apply. It would be counter-productive to select areas with development problems so serious that they limited the project's chances of success. Preference should go, therefore, to poor areas where there is relatively greater potential for development of viable economic activities, availability of at least some development services that could be channelled to the poor, and market outlets for goods and services.

The next step is to select village clusters - i.e. a group of adjacent villages with cultural, economic or physical links - where project activities will begin. To identify these clusters, project planners should conduct exploratory socio-economic surveys, preferably in cooperation with group promoters. Villages selected should have potential for development and a low degree of social stratification.

The rural poor depend for their livelihoods on full- or part-time employment in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, handicrafts and related occupations. They include small and marginal landowner-farmers, tenants, sharecroppers, landless labourers and small fishermen, as well as forestry workers, rural artisans, nomadic pastoralists and refugees.

Problems in selecting participants Experience with PPP highlights constraints and shortcomings in the application of criteria for the selection of project participants. In Kenya, the lack of sufficient and well-defined guidelines led to the formation of groups that included well-off farmers as well as poor subsistence farmers for whom the project was intended. Other problems stem from difficulties in defining adequate criteria for identifying the poor. In Sierra Leone, for instance, many "households" were multi-family units of more than than 25 people. Assessing the division of income from land worked by one member of these extended families proved almost impossible. In Zambia, land tenure was nearly impossible to assess: land is not owned privately but allocated temporarily by traditional chiefs to those in need.

Levels of deprivation also exist among the poor. Small farmers are sometimes considered "marginally poor" because they have some access to income and assets. Usually worse off are sharecroppers, landless labourers and hawkers (the very poor), who are dependent on the better-off for their survival. The most deprived people in rural areas are destitutes, such as widows and the handicapped, who have no economic base whatsoever.

To identify potential participants, project staff should gather existing information on the rural population in the selected project action area, including data on population, land tenure, economic activities and income distribution. From this information, the staff can assess directly the numbers, proportion and main characteristics of the poor and non-poor.

For a more accurate assessment, it may be necessary to develop poverty criteria specific to the area. Possible criteria include level of access to productive resources, ethnic and caste characteristics, level of skills available in the family, on- and off-farm family income, the extent of family indebtedness, housing conditions, nutrition status, level of education and family health, and extent of participation in rural people's organizations and in local decision-making.

Typically, project participants will be people whose main source of income is agriculture, fishing or related activities, whose principal source of labour is their family, and whose income is below the average in the area concerned. They will have little or no access to inputs, credit, markets, training, extension and other services.

While a participatory project seeks to benefit all categories of the rural poor, it need not necessarily start with the poorest. In fact, some projects deliberately seek to involve first the marginally poor small farmers rather than the very poor or destitutes. Experience has shown that small farmers are often keener to create organizations because they can afford to risk some of their assets in group activities. The very poor have fewer assets and more debts, and are more dependent on their employers. For this group, risk-taking can pose a threat to their very survival. Involvement of poorer people may be achieved only in later phases.

To make a preliminary assessment of the rural poor's needs and aspirations, staff should consult with the intended participants. For this reason, an applied sociologist or anthropologist, and one or more experts in agronomy or other fields depending upon the type of project and its action areas, should be included in either the project identification mission or a reconnaissance mission undertaken beforehand.

Reconnaissance teams should carry out relatively rapid but practical social and economic studies, consulting a representative cross-section of local people - in particular the poor - as well as key members of local people's organizations and traditional leaders. The team's inquiries should cover such topics as existing development efforts, felt needs, aspirations and constraints. The information collected - although sufficient to devise a flexible project framework - should be regarded as preliminary and, in part, suspect. More reliable in-depth data will be gathered by field staff as they gradually gain the people's confidence while working with them during project implementation.

Needs identification - and the search for ways to satisfy needs - should be regarded, therefore, as a continuous process, as groups and organizations involved in the project assert their felt needs and delivery staff endeavour to meet them.

• Groups are starting bases for development activities. By pooling their capital, labour and other resources, members are able to carry out profitable self-help activities which, if undertaken by individuals, would involve greater risk and effort.

• Groups are efficient receiving mechanisms. Well trained and motivated groups offer government and NGO development agencies cost savings in the delivery of inputs, services and facilities.

• Groups are learning laboratories. Members learn from their group promoter, and from each other, such skills as managing group enterprises, articulating, discussing and solving problems, and keeping accounts.

• Groups help empower the rural poor. Groups provide the poor with an effective instrument for participation in local decision-making, helping them to cooperate more fully in the development of their communities and to exert pressure, where necessary, to improve their conditions.

The question is whether or not these organizations genuinely represent the interests of the rural poor. Cooperatives are often too large and their structures too hierarchical to be effective vehicles for participatory development. Similarly, traditional tribal or community groupings are often managed in a top-down fashion and may provide limited opportunities for participatory learning and decision making.

If the inventory indicates that participatory groups are lacking, the project should promote their formation among project participants. In PPP's experience four essential guidelines should be followed:

• Groups should be small. The optimum number of members is between eight and 15. Small groups facilitate dialogue between members, have greater economic flexibility, and are less likely to be dominated by management elites or break down into factions.

• Groups should be homogeneous. Members should live under similar economic conditions and have close social affinity. Homogeneity reduces conflict at group level: members with similar backgrounds are more likely to trust each other and accept joint liability for their activities.

• Groups should be formed around viable starter income-raising activities. Income-raising activities are crucial to group development because they generate assets that help build financial self-reliance.

• Groups should be voluntary and self-governing. Participants should decide who will join the groups, who will lead them, what rules they will follow, and what activities they will undertake. Decisions should be taken by consensus or majority vote.

• Prior to beginning group formation, project staff should conduct a household survey with the local population to identify homogeneity factors, poverty levels, priority needs and criteria for group membership. The objectives of the project and its focus on the poor should be openly discussed and the villagers involved in selection of criteria for participation in the groups.

The project should then organize informal meetings with prospective group members to discuss the purpose, methods of operation and benefits of groups, as well as possible enterprises and means of production. Group promoters should make a list of potential group members and leaders, possible group activities and required inputs.

Once the participants have identified viable income-raising activities, those interested in a particular activity should decide on criteria for group membership: for example, whether members should belong to a specific category (such as small-holders, tenants or landless) or whether the group should be male-only, female-only or mixed. They should also assess their productive resources, including capital, skills and experience.

By consensus or formal voting, the group members should then elect a chairperson, secretary and treasurer. Project staff should encourage rotation of leadership positions among group members in order to give all members leadership experience, thus minimizing the risk of domination by a few. Finally, the group should formulate its own constitution and procedures, setting out rules on such matters as the frequency of group meetings and the use of savings and loans.

Formation of viable and stable groups requires patience and, in most cases, a period of from two to six months. Both overly rapid formation and overly long delays, which may dampen the interest of potential group members, should be avoided.

Other constraints are posed by local power-holders - and even slightly better-off farmers - who may see the groups as a threat to age-old, and often highly profitable, patron-client relationships.

At local level, project staff can help overcome this antagonism by winning the support of traditional, administrative and other leaders. They may need to call meetings to sensitize leaders to the objectives of the participatory project and, above all, to illustrate the benefits of its activities to the area as a whole. These benefits include improvements in community living standards, an increased flow of government services to the village and, consequently, greater prestige for the village and its leaders.

Forms of federation There is no universal model for inter-group federations. In Ghana, for example, participants in one village cluster all belonged to an inter-group federation, while in another the federation was made up only of group representatives. In a neighbouring area, a federation consisted of two groups involved in cassava processing. In Sri Lanka, federations are made up of two delegates from groups in each cluster, while in Lesotho, they consist of elected group delegates plus a representative of the traditional local leader.

An inter-group federation represents its constituent groups and is not an executive body: it must be accountable to all group members. It should have a facilitating, coordinating and educational role and become a source of technical assistance, economies of scale and guidance. For instance, a federation can offer training to new groups and even help finance their activities from accumulated savings. Moreover, it can serve as a reference point for formation of new inter-group federations and eventually perform at least some of the functions of group promoters.

In most cases, federations should, initially, represent groups with a variety of economic activities, rather than a single activity. Multi-activity federations are usually better able to meet common needs of the groups, such as training and information exchange, and to exert pressure on the delivery system. Single-activity federations may emerge at a later stage.

Inter-group federations may be legalized as pre-cooperatives or federations in order to obtain more recognition, legal status, services and facilities. They may also link themselves to participatory, rural poor-oriented cooperatives or other people's organizations. It should be stressed, however, that the groups do not replace cooperatives and other village institutions. They remain autonomous interest groups that may operate within, and help to strengthen, existing traditional or informal organizations, thus broadening the network of institutions serving the rural poor.

Linking federations to existing organizations not only facilitates delivery of development services and facilities, but also the consolidation of group plans into multi-group or federation plans that can be matched with area and regional development plans through local coordination committees. Thus, a two-way planning process can be developed.

Through inter-group activities and federations of groups, the poor become increasingly self-confident and recognized by their wider community. They obtain organizational power and may eventually be represented in local government bodies.

The nature of group activities will depend on the needs, desires and capabilities of each group, local economic, social and institutional potentials, and the project's design, objectives, staff and resources.

Raising income PPP groups developed a wide variety of income-generating activities. In Ghana, groups engaged in maize farming, cassava processing, brickmaking and production of baskets and beads. In Thailand, they raise pigs, poultry and freshwater fish. Zambian groups have set up rural nurseries to propagate cashew seedlings for sale. Other groups earn income from production and marketing of vegetables. In Lesotho, activities ranged from sewing and knitting to crop, poultry and animal production (one piggery group recently won first prize for its piglets at a national agricultural show). Groups in Sri Lanka earn extra income through intensive production of cash crops, sesame oil extraction, rearing chickens, goats and milking cows, and labour contracts.

Although group activities vary widely, four general types can be distinguished:

• Direct income-raising activities. These are existing or new enterprises, in any economic sector or subsector, that produce income. For example, groups may intensify production of food or cash crops, develop small-scale animal husbandry, small-scale aquaculture or agro-processing, and build small scale irrigation, drainage or anti-erosion systems. Other activities include development of low-cost storage, transport and marketing facilities, supply points for inputs or utility stores, and micro-industries such as blacksmithing.

• Cost-saving activities. These are activities that increase net income by reducing costs. They include activities that reduce production costs, such as bulk purchasing of inputs, group transport and marketing of products, and consumer savings through joint purchasing of consumer goods in bulk. Groups might also benefit from social savings - e.g. group agreement to cut spending on alcohol and gambling - and social insurance through group welfare funds or collective insurance arrangements.

• Production-facilitating activities. These aim at creating favourable conditions for group production. They include consolidating members' holdings for joint production, cleaning irrigation canals, building or repairing roads, and village electrification. At the political level, groups might lobby for enforcement of land reform laws.

• Community development activities. Many groups undertake social and cultural activities in the fields of health and sanitation, education, family planning, folk theatre and village beautification. In many areas there is an acute need for group action to promote better nutrition and improved food storage, and install clean water supplies.

Building a rural enterprise Two PPP groups in Ghana, established a highly profitable cassava processing enterprise. The groups began producing gari (dehydrated cassava meal) in 1983 to raise extra income. They soon realized they could make better profits by increasing the volume - and improving the quality - of output. Members made an inventory of available raw materials, labour and processing technology, and assessed their needs for transport, marketing, technical skills and capital. After attending an FAO workshop on cassava processing methods and small scale enterprise management, they built a processing plant on land obtained from the relative of one member. The enterprise has expanded rapidly. The members process more than 50 tonnes of cassava a year and have won orders from government institutions and food exporters.

It is important that - as far as possible - each group identifies, plans, carries out and evaluates its own activities. This is essential for group development and, eventually, self-reliance. While group promoters have an important role in encouraging group activities, especially in the initial stages, theirs is a facilitating role that will be reduced gradually as the groups develop.

Since the main objective of any enterprise is to produce something that people will buy, the group should be taught how to conduct simple market surveys in their community to identify a product or service needed and how much customers are prepared to pay for it. The group should then decide whether members have the resources and skills to supply it. The group should choose a product or service it can produce economically and well, avoiding complex production processes. Next, the group should calculate what is required to establish the enterprise, i.e. what skills and other resources each member can contribute. The final, and most important step, is to calculate expected profits.

Each group should prepare a simple group business plan dealing with the socio-economic conditions, resources and problems of the participating households. They should also prepare a schedule of operations and plans for future subsidiary on- or off-farm income-raising activities of individual members that may strengthen their economic base.

Small-scale feasibility studies may be needed in order to produce workable proposals for group activities. These studies should consider existing income-generating and other activities promoted by government or NGO agencies in the area. The identification of viable group activities also forms part of on-going action research - for example, a number of proposals may emerge from household survey data.

The importance of group planning Examples from Zambia and Swaziland highlight the importance of planning in group activities. A Swazi group decided to raise broilers for sale. Members obtained credit to build a chicken shed, then discovered some of the problems of running a rural enterprise: wild fluctuations in the availability of chickens, high transport costs and unreliable markets. After three years, the activity had barely made a profit and members had to repay the loan from their own savings. In Zambia, meanwhile, two groups decided to establish orange groves only after a detailed feasibility study which showed that they could expect profits of $7,500 a year within 10 years. The study estimated total costs of $3,800 in the five years before the trees became productive. Thereafter, the groves would yield 1.5 tonnes of oranges, rising to nine tonnes by the fifth season. In this period, total profit was expected to be $21,000.

The first hurdle faced by most groups is that of financing the activity. While the project may envisage provision of credit for the groups, experience indicates that initial activities should be funded by group members themselves through savings. This ensures that the scope of the activity is within the group's existing capacity and resources, builds commitment to the group and reduces debt dependency. Another common problem in developing activities is the groups' need for training. Members often have low literacy and numeracy skills, both of which handicap sound management. Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of training materials for the rural poor in this field.

As a group develops its activities and sees the rewards they bring, it usually begins to undertake additional, more complex enterprises. The risk here is that groups may "bite off more than they can chew". Group promoters should help their groups examine objectively the feasibility of proposed new activities by assessing the availability of group resources, funding and local markets.

It is no easy task to teach groups with limited literacy, numeracy and organizational skills how to manage an enterprise. The project may need to develop training materials and methods tailored to the learning capacities of group members. These should focus on developing skills in two critical areas: operational and strategic management. Operational management deals with issues arising from groups' day-to-day activities. For effective operational management there is a great need for instructional manuals on group dynamics, group business management, monitoring and evaluation, and savings/credit.

Strategic management focuses on solving problems related to the long-term development of certain group activities, allowing members to anticipate the impact of external factors (for example, new price policies or environmental damage caused by over-cropping or over-fishing).

Finally, the groups need to examine very carefully the feasibility of undertaking collective production activities. Experience with PPP has shown that while group members obtain better returns by sharing production inputs and experience, many have learnt - the hard way - that actual production is often best conducted on an individual basis. Many attempts to farm communal plots have failed owing to disputes over the allocation of labour and the division of income.

Project staff generally advise those groups wishing to use communal plots to plan the activity together, but divide the land into individual plots for production. Collective efforts are better suited to the sharing of newly acquired technical skills, or expensive or laborious tasks such as transporting inputs and produce.

The selection of an implementing agency will also depend on the type of project concerned and the capabilities and willingness of agencies to provide the participatory groups with the services and facilities they need.

Project planners should also consider whether prospective implementing agencies are prepared to second field workers, such as extensionists and social workers, to serve as project group promoters. In the case of training or socio-economic research centres, the project should ascertain whether these institutions have genuine concern for the rural poor and whether they can provide the expertise needed for participatory training, action research and evaluation. Regardless of which agency is eventually chosen to implement the project, overall government support should be guaranteed from the outset.

"On the side of the poor" Sudath de Abrew was an extension agent before becoming coordinator of the Sri Lanka PPP project. "In a line agency, you are expected to produce results," he said. "The shortest cut is to work with the middle-level and rich farmers who have the means of implementing your advice. I was not reaching the small farmers and was not aware of their problems." His attitude has changed with PPP: "When you work with the poor, you are reoriented so much that within 18 months you are on their side. I am happy that I found the right place for me." The Zambia project coordinator, Lydia Ndulu, agreed. "A coordinator must be committed to the people and to the cause of the people because she will always be in contact with them," Ms. Ndulu said. "I know now that when a group is formed, it should be up to them to do everything and perceive everything in their own way. I am there to help them or find someone who can help them better than I can."

In line with these duties, he or she should be a member of the coordination committee at project level, should brief committee members on project activities and progress and should assist in the selection, training and guidance of group promoters. The coordinator should also be a member of the national coordinating committee.

The essential qualifications of a project coordinator include close acquaintance with the problems of the rural poor and the motivation to assist them, experience in working with field agents such as extensionists and social workers, familiarity with government and international development bodies at various levels, and experience in organizing training activities. The coordinator should also have an academic degree or equivalent in economics, social or agricultural science, and a good knowledge of the local language in the project area.

Local coordination committee in the project area. This committee should be composed of group delegates, project staff, representatives of local delivery agencies and, where opportune, local leaders. The committee's task is to provide local-level support for the project by promoting people's participation and solving implementation problems, especially in the delivery of services and facilities to the groups.

It does this by helping to recruit and train project staff, especially group promoters, providing project staff with guidelines for the planning, implementation and evaluation of the rural poor's participation, and promoting effective two-way communication between low-income groups in the project areas and government and NGO officials at various levels.

Reducing frictions, and speeding up bank loans In Ghana, where many PPP participants were landless, the project coordination committee proved useful in reducing frictions with local landowners. The committee consisted of elected cluster leaders, the local bank manager, and representatives of the implementing NGO and the landowning traditional council. One issue addressed by the committee was the rent levied on tenant farmers. Through the committee, PPP groups negotiated a new three-year contract with the traditional council.    National coordinating committees are in a position to solve bottlenecks affecting the delivery of project inputs. In Sri Lanka, the Central Coordinating Committee was made up of high-ranking officials from several Government ministries and FAO. At one of its monthly meetings, the project coordinator reported that groups had not received their seasonal loans on time. The committee decided that before the next season the lending bank should scrutinize and approve loan applications in one day. The committee's instruction was transmitted through the bank's head office to its branch managers.

The committee should also work to secure training for the groups from government and NGO bodies, promote the consolidation of the project's activities and their multiplication in other areas of the country, and perform any other function that will enhance the success of the project.

In areas where a task force for a larger project already exists, the coordinating committee could be constituted as a participation sub-committee of the task force. Within this body, small technical committees could also be created for training, approval of group loans and monitoring and evaluation.

National coordinating committee. While coordination of project support services should be undertaken mainly at local level, encouragement and support from national level is essential. In the case of large projects, support might be organized through a special national coordinating committee or task force, or an existing national committee established for similar development programmes. National committees might also appoint a sub-committee or special task force to deal with general policies, personnel, finance and other matters affecting participatory development.

Although the coordination mechanisms described above are desirable, flexibility is also needed. Arrangements will vary according to local conditions and the type of coordination bodies already existing in a country or project area. In addition, a project involving mainly government agencies may require a coordination mechanism different to that needed for a project implemented by an NGO.

For the latter type of project, it may be appropriate to set up one or more small task forces at national and at lower levels that include representatives of the NGOs concerned and possibly of the supporting government agencies.

In most developing countries, however, the rural poor have little, if any, access to institutional finance. This is partly because the rural poor lack the physical collateral normally required to qualify for bank loans. Another disincentive for banks is the high per unit cost of delivering financial services to the poor. Reaching and servicing large numbers of scattered and unorganized rural people is time-consuming, and the volume of their individual savings and loan operations is low. Dealing with the poor as individuals is simply not cost-effective for banks, nor is it profitable, given the interest rate ceilings under which most banks operate.

Although PPP financial approaches vary according to local conditions, all of them share five basic elements:

• Savings first. Groups are encouraged to initiate group-based savings schemes prior to applying for bank loans. Progress in mobilizing group savings provides a measure of members' commitment to the group enterprise and their loan repayment capacity.

• Group savings and credit. Delivery of financial services to participatory groups, rather than individuals, carries cost advantages for both banks and the poor. For example, a joint loan application submitted by a group of 10 farmers reduces the bank's loan administration costs by a factor of 10. Group saving offers similar reductions in deposit account maintenance costs. Transactions costs are also lower for the group members: they need to prepare only one loan application and make a single trip to their local bank branch.

• Credit Guarantee Fund. To encourage an interested institution to lend to participatory groups, each PPP project provides a special Credit Guarantee Fund (CGF) to cover losses resulting from loan defaults. The fund, held in an interest-bearing account at the institution, is governed by a written agreement that sets out conditions under which loans are to be granted from the bank's own capital, as well as procedures to be followed in case of non-repayment of loans.

• Linking savings with credit. Through the CGF agreement, the cooperating bank also requires that groups open a joint savings account and make regular deposits for a specified period before becoming eligible for loans. Some projects limit the maximum amount that a group can borrow to a multiple of the amount in the group's savings account, or require the group to deposit part of its loan as savings.

• Loans based on social collateral. In PPP projects, the cooperating bank is encouraged to relax requirements for physical collateral and use "social collateral" in its place. Members of borrowing groups are held jointly responsible for the repayment of their group loan. Should one member of the group fail to repay his or her portion of the loan, the entire group loan is considered delinquent and all group members are barred from obtaining credit until it has been repaid. (This mechanism is partly responsible for the PPP loan recovery rate of 80-90%, roughly double the rate achieved by most small farmer credit schemes.)

• Group training in financial self-reliance. An essential element of PPP is the training of group members and leaders in the importance of achieving financial self-reliance. Groups are encouraged to exercise discipline in the use of savings and credit in order to maximize the income-generating potential of their activities, to accumulate wealth and to build credit-worthiness. The group promoter plays an important role in this education process and serves as a link between the group and the cooperating bank.

Adapting to local conditions The design and operation of the PPP financial component is tailored to conditions in individual countries. When the PPP project began in Ghana, for example, the country suffered from high inflation and a shortage of foreign exchange. To facilitate project operations, the guarantee fund was transferred into an Input-Import Fund held in convertible currency outside the country, while the Ghanaian Government allocated funds sufficient to cover most local currency costs. The collaborating bank received the inputs, which were then distributed to the participants on credit. The price of inputs in local currency was determined jointly by the government, the project and the bank. In Sierra Leone, where the PPP project provided credit directly, a detailed system was developed to provide and recover loans in kind. In Zambia, credit is administered by a national cooperative organization. Other project-specific arrangements include group marketing of surplus in Ghana and the formation of local credit unions in Lesotho.

There are several selection criteria. First, the institution should have a widespread network of branches in rural areas, and particularly in the project action area. Its management should be willing to introduce and test group approaches to delivering financial services to small farmers and should accept the concept of group-based social collateral. The institution should also agree to the establishment of the Credit Guarantee Fund. Finally, it should also be prepared to provide group-based or individual savings facilities for project participants and to introduce mechanisms to stimulate saving. Once an appropriate banking institution has been selected, the next step is to negotiate the Credit Guarantee Fund agreement. In PPP's experience, negotiation of this agreement may take time and project activities may have to begin before the actual agreement is signed. Nevertheless, the proposed agreement with the selected institution should be made a part of the project document.

To ensure that the bank provides proper supervision and technical support to its new clients, CGF agreements usually call for the setting up of a small farmer finance management committee within the bank to monitor the implementation of the project's financial component. Representatives of the cooperating bank may also be asked to serve on local or national project coordinating committees.

Finally, group promoters play a critical role in building up financial-self reliance among PPP groups. The GP must not only train members in basic financial skills, but assist the bank in recovering loans and building stronger links with the groups. As the groups reach maturity, however, this responsibility should be assumed gradually by inter-group federations. The federations thus complement - and help reduce the costs of - the bank's own supervisory and monitoring support.

Unlike many extensionists, GPs do not see their "clients" as passive recipients of new technical knowledge: their aim is to work side by side with the poor, building up their confidence in their own abilities and promoting their self-reliance. Since this must be done without creating patron-client dependencies, the GP's task is essentially that of an intermediary, with three basic roles:

• group adviser, strengthening the groups' leadership, organizational and planning capacity
• participatory trainer, teaching groups basic technical, literacy and problem-solving skills
• "link person", facilitating communication between the groups and government and NGO development services.

They should be familiar with the language and culture of the project area and willing to leave decision making to the group members, promoting among them attitudes of self-help and self-reliance. Desirable GP qualifications are a rural background, secondary level education, and experience in community or rural development or in such fields as social work, elementary economics or sociology, agriculture and extension.

While GPs may be part of the same ethnic or linguistic group as the project participants, they should not be from the project area: the effectiveness of locally recruited GPs may be limited by kinship obligations and fear of alienating local leaders. In some cases, however, GPs can be recruited from and posted to their own village or zone of origin, the advantage being that their experience and know-how can continue to be utilized after withdrawal of the project.

Government extension agents performed well The PPP project in Thailand seconded 26 GPs from the government agricultural extension service. The extension agents, who normally used the "Training-and-Visit" method based on individual contacts with farmers, had expressed willingness to try a bottom-up approach. Their enthusiasm and extension experience proved a distinct advantage: they had a sound knowledge of agriculture, had built up good relations with their target rural communities, and needed training only in participatory methods to prepare them for their new role. The GPs performed well and helped promote a participatory approach among their colleagues in the extension service.

Capable group promoters may be recruited from government agencies or local NGOs. In some countries, preference should go to government agencies willing to second their own staff to the project. Several PPP projects found excellent group promoters among government extension staff, who later returned to their agencies to propagate the participatory approach. Thus, the agencies were sensitized and better able to serve the rural poor, while project sustainability increased because recurrent costs were lower. The use of seconded government workers also enhances project expansion and multiplication.

If the project lacks the funding needed to recruit full-time GPs, their task can be performed in part by trained project staff who have other technical duties. However, such staff should preferably be locally recruited, with tasks that bring them into direct contact with the intended project participants.

The image of group promoters among the population in their action area is important. They should gradually build up confidential relationships with the local community, being careful to begin with the project participants and only thereafter dealing with better-off social strata. Through daily interaction with the poor, the GPs will gradually come to be regarded as animators and guides, and not as "top-down" government officials or outsiders interfering with the local culture and habits.

When and how should GPs gradually withdraw from their groups? Experience in the implementation of PPP projects indicates that it takes from three to five years for groups to achieve complete self-reliance. Clearly, the disengagement process is a delicate one and depends on the rate at which each group develops. Once a group is capable of gaining access to government and NGO services and taking other initiatives without GP assistance, the GP can gradually withdraw to concentrate on serving other more needy groups, making only occasional return visits to ensure that progress continues.

Setting up inter-group federations in the third or fourth years of project implementation is important, as these bodies can gradually assume many of the GPs' support responsibilities. Self-reliance may not always mean total disengagement of group promoters: in some cases, GPs could be maintained by federations to perform certain specific functions.

A group member becomes an internal GP when others begin to recognize his or her capacity to promote and facilitate group action. Given the dynamic nature of the participatory process, the training of internal GPs cannot be a static once-only activity. It should cover both group dynamics and practical skills needed to improve the rural poor's capacity to implement and manage their own activities.

In participatory projects, the main objectives of training are:

• to improve the economic and social conditions of the poor
• to help participants to become active and productive group members and leaders
• to encourage GPs and supporting staff to adapt conventional training methods to meet the real needs of the poor
• to stimulate all those involved in the project to develop more appropriate training methods and materials.

Trainers must have practical experience. They should include group promoters and other project staff, technical officers of delivery agencies, experienced small scale producers as well as successful groups that train and motivate others.

• General participatory techniques that enhance member participation in decision making through efficient group formation and action. Subjects include group dynamics, leadership, planning of group activities, savings and credit, accounting, enterprise management, monitoring and evaluation, and negotiating and bargaining. Training might also centre on eliminating social problems such as alcohol abuse and gambling.

• Specialized training tailored to the type of project as well as to specific needs identified by the groups. This includes training in crop production, small livestock development, soil and water conservation, small-scale aquaculture, forestry and group marketing, and non-farm activities such as crop processing, weaving, tailoring, pottery, and production of house-building materials or handicrafts.

• Training in home and community development, especially for women. Subjects include health, sanitation, first aid, nutrition and child care, as well as management leadership and village development.

The implementing agency should train the project coordinator in these topics as early as possible. GPs need, in particular, management training in production planning and implementation, transfer of appropriate technology, marketing, communication techniques, leadership, team-building, recordkeeping and writing of reports.

An inception training workshop of at least three weeks should be given in or near the project area for GPs, other project staff and key officials of the delivery system. It is advisable to invite twice as many candidate GPs as needed initially in the project in order to secure a reserve pool of these field workers. The curriculum should be pragmatic and include work experience presentations by participants.

After this inception training, GPs need initial field training of 2-3 months, a period that coincides with the start of their field activities in the project area. They should learn as a team to prepare and carry out village and household surveys, to solve problems met in the field and to cooperate with delivery agencies.

Follow-up training of GPs should be carried out through monthly meetings to evaluate team performance, to identify and solve work problems and to prepare field workshops and refresher courses in such subjects as innovative income-raising activities and credit schemes. The GPs might also collaborate in issuing a project newsletter and take part in exchange visits to other participatory projects.

Training opportunities for government and NGO staff consist mainly of participation in GP training courses, field workshops, briefing sessions, project coordination committees, beneficiary training, inter-country seminars, and inter-group or inter-project exchange visits.

In PPP, research, monitoring and evaluation are intended primarily to meet the information needs of the participants and solve concrete problems they confront. The approach is viewed as a participatory learning tool that helps groups to strengthen their problem-solving capacity and achieve self-reliance.

Initially, the main research objectives are to select the project area and - within these, village-clusters - to identify the rural poor and to determine whether they are involved in development efforts, especially through existing local organizations. Research is then conducted to assess potentials for group formation, to plan and implement group activities and to develop appropriate training programmes.

During project implementation, ongoing participatory research aims at solving concrete problems and providing data for field workshops, developing and sustaining a workable participatory monitoring and evaluation system, carrying out case studies of rural poor groups and developing appropriate technologies for project participants.

Tools for participatory action research are simple household and village surveys conducted periodically, mainly by GPs in collaboration with participants. These surveys will help to establish economic and social benchmarks, which highlight the status of the beneficiaries in the initial phase of the project and allow progress to be evaluated.

Group discussions with villagers are useful in familiarizing project staff with the local people and their situation, and in enhancing awareness of the villagers' problems. Part of this action research is a careful and systematic recording of GPs' findings, particularly of steps taken by participants to form their groups.

A workable participatory monitoring system should, therefore, be based on a multi-level approach that harmonizes the different - and often competing - information needs of those involved in the project and provides for regular meetings at each level to make use of the data generated.

The main tools for participatory monitoring are:

• At group level, group log-books, meetings, ledgers and accounts
• At GP level, GP diaries and log-books, and meetings to monitor group progress
• At project level, project records and accounts, sample surveys, field visits, preparation of periodic progress reports and GP meetings to review their progress
• At donor level, external monitoring and workshops.

Participatory monitoring should be conceived from the beginning as part of the group learning and action process. This means that baseline and benchmark data, as well as data on inputs, outputs, work plans and progress made in group development, should be recorded, discussed and kept for later use.

Groups should keep records of their meetings and of major problems discussed, decisions made and actions undertaken, using elementary standardized forms contained in simple log-books. Each group should also learn a minimum of bookkeeping in order to record their loans and savings. The systematic collection of data on loans and repayment, in conjunction with simple cost-benefit analyses, gives essential insights into the capacity of groups to manage their affairs and improve their conditions.

The main evaluation tools are:

• GPs' log-books summarizing group records, and diaries containing personal observations on the process and results of beneficiary participation
• monthly review and evaluation meetings of GPs
• quarterly group and inter-group evaluation sessions
• newsletters in the local language based on information provided by the groups
• evaluation studies and surveys
• field workshops that allow participants, project staff and concerned outsiders to assess the project fully.

The groups should also be encouraged to evaluate the performance of the delivery system. This helps groups to "talk back" to the delivery system by, for example, focusing on shortcomings and identifying bottlenecks. The results may then be brought up in field workshops.

Evaluation done in this way stimulates critical awareness and motivation for better group self-management. Self-evaluation results need to be presented systematically to other project participants at local and higher levels.

Evaluation should include not only tangible and measurable results of group activities but, as much as possible, spill-over benefits that facilitate the group members' economic, social and human development. It should consider, for example, progress in acquiring verbal and writing skills, in presenting ideas logically and clearly, in overcoming timidity when dealing with officials and in overcoming anti-social habits, such as excessive drinking and gambling.

The GP obviously plays a pivotal role in initiating and empowering this learning process in its initial phases. Yet it is equally critical to recognize when groups have reached a point of self-sustainability and no longer require special assistance from the project.

• Regularity of group meetings and level of member attendance. These two indicators provide clear evidence of whether members are benefiting from the learning process. When regular meetings and high attendence continue in the absence of the GP, the group is obviously well on the way to achieving self-reliance.

• Shared leadership and member participation in group decision making. Groups that share leadership reponsibilities and in which there is a high level of participation in decision-making tend to learn more quickly and develop a broader leadership base than those in which leadership and decision making responsibilities are monopolized by a minority. The latter groups tend to be much more vulnerable to leadership crises and less able to maintain long-term self-sustainability.

• Continuous growth in group savings. The ability of the group to accumulate savings is a key measure of members' faith in and financial commitment to group activities. It is also a good indicator of the profitability of the group activity and of the group's financial ability to weather risk and adversity. Groups which do not save, or save very little, are less likely to achieve self-sustainability quickly.

• High rates of loan repayment. A group's capacity to repay loans on time is another indicator of group financial discipline, as well of the profitbility of its income-generating activity.

• Group problem-solving. The ability of the group to solve problems and take initiatives to achieve its self-development in the absence of the GP indicates members' confidence in their own capabilities.

• Effective links with development services. The self-reliance of a group also depends on its ability to maintain links with government and NGO development services, in the absence of project staff.

GPs may also adopt a group self-reliance monitoring system, perhaps based on a review of group record books. At the project level, monitoring may be carried out through frequent GP meetings in which group-by-group progress is reviewed, and through periodic sample surveys conducted with randomly selected groups.

In reviewing costs and benefits, it should be remembered that the very essence of the participatory approach is promoting the self-reliance of the rural poor. This implies low and decreasing recurrent costs, and increasing cost-recovery by the project participants. Although a participatory process needs some "start-up" external aid, the basic objective is that the process becomes self-propelling as soon as possible.

Total external aid costs averaged, therefore, $63 per year per group member and less than $11 per beneficiary (i.e. the group member's dependants). While average cost per participant and beneficiary is high in the initial phase of the project, it declines rapidly as project staff are trained and as groups become more self-reliant. Average beneficiary costs in larger participatory projects would be lower due to economies of scale.

The incremental costs of including participatory elements in a larger project are low in relation to those of other technical components. Thanks to economies in administration and coordination, the incremental cost per beneficiary of including a participatory component would be lower than in smaller scale PPP projects. Incorporating participatory elements would involve the following extra costs:

• Financing a small number of locally recruited field workers who act for a limited period as group promoters (if selected from extension staff, they will need special training in group formation and action only)
• Inception and training workshops on the participatory approach and procedures, and yearly follow-up evaluation workshops
• Training for participants and project staff in people's participation, particularly group dynamics and other topics directly related to group formation and action
• Participatory socio-economic research and participatory monitoring and evaluation covering group formation, action, performance and constraints.

While data are still fragmentary, there is sufficient evidence to show that PPP's benefits are significant. These benefits can be measured from two perspectives, that of individual participants and that of society in general. Benefits to participants include:

• Increased food production. PPP groups have achieved notable increases in food crop and meat production. In Ghana, for example, groups' maize output per hectare is 20 percent higher than that of non-participating farmers. Similar results have been recorded in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Kenya.

• Higher net family incomes. Although income data is notoriously difficult to collect, proxy indicators such as high PPP group loan repayment rates, rising levels of group savings and visible improvements in participants' housing conditions point towards increased net family incomes.

• Increased employment. Production technologies employed by PPP groups tend to be low-cost and labour intensive. The most common indicator of greater rural employment opportunities is the participants' increased output per hectare, which generates demand for more farm labour.

• Higher rates of saving. Savings mobilized by PPP group members may appear low to outsiders. But the per capita savings registered in PPP projects - e.g. $21 in Kenya, $39 in Swaziland and $40 in Zimbabwe - represent a major achievement by rural people who, previously, had no savings at all.

• Acquisition of new skills. A clear benefit emerging from PPP evaluations is the acquisition by participants of technical, organizational and leadership skills. Groups have proven to be an ideal learning environment, providing opportunities for discussion, problem-solving and the exchange of new ideas.

• Creation of "zero-cost" receiving systems. Perhaps the most important benefit of PPP is the creation of new types of rural service receiving systems that become self-propelling and require little or no outside subsidy support. For delivery systems, the provision of financial, extension and other development services to organized small farmers is more cost-efficient than traditional methods. For example, group credit and savings arrangements greatly reduce financial transaction costs to banks, while higher loan recovery rates produce significant cost-savings for governments.

• Building of rural community infrastructure at low-cost. Groups in all PPP projects have initiated community improvement activities, from construction of primary schools to village electrification. Since labour and most materials for these activities are contributed free of charge by group members, such infrastructure is built and maintained at minimum cost to government.

• Strengthening of rural institutions. Many rural institutions, such as cooperatives, do not function efficiently because members have little scope for participation in decision making. As PPP groups link up with these organizations, they stimulate greater participation and improvements in organizational performance, reducing the need for government support.

Replication can be pursued in one of three ways:

• through expansion of project activities in adjacent areas
• through multiplication, i.e. the launching of similar projects in other areas of the country
• through the introduction of participatory components in larger-scale rural development projects and programmes.

Recognizing the right to organize A primary condition for the promotion of rural people's participation is the removal of barriers to their association in organizations of their choice. This calls for the ratification and enforcement by governments of International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and recommendations on the role of rural workers organizations in social and economic development. ILO Convention No. 141 calls on governments to give rural workers "every encouragement" to develop, on a voluntary basis, "free and viable organizations". ILO Recommendation No. 127 defines a cooperative as a voluntary, democratically controlled and independent organization that is expected to become an instrument through which members are able to participate in decisions at higher levels. ILO Recommendation No. 149 calls for "active encouragement" of rural workers organizations and recommends that they "be independent and voluntary in character" and "free from all interference, coercion or repression".

In preparing for expansion or multiplication of participatory projects, planners should consider several basic points. First, expansion carries with it the risk of diluting key features of the ongoing participatory project. Planners should seek, therefore, to consolidate progress made in establishing groups and inter-group federations and in redirecting the services of delivery agencies. Without this consolidation, the expansion phase of the project could entail a decline in group activities.

New areas to be covered by the project during its expansion or multiplication phase should be adjacent to the original project area. This facilitates project management and supervision, as well as cooperation among existing and potential project participants and service agencies. Expansion and multiplication also implies a need for more field staff, particularly group promoters. GPs should be carefully selected and trained, preferably by senior group promoters who performed well during the project's first phase. Inter-group associations can play an important role in project expansion by assisting in recruitment of internal cadres, training new groups and federations, and disseminating improved technology.

To establish fruitful linkages in the expansion phase, it is indispensable to obtain information on existing groups, people's organizations and public and NGO development agencies in the new project areas, and ongoing projects and programmes with which the expanded project could cooperate.

Finally, in planning expansion and multiplication, various operations involved in the identification and preparation of the original project can be streamlined, thanks to the experience accumulated. For example, data collection can be more selective as considerable information will already be available. Incorporating participatory elements in large scale rural development programmes PPP projects are not pursued as ends in themselves, but rather to demonstrate to donor, government and NGO decision makers the benefits and cost-effectiveness of using group-based participatory approaches. These decision makers are best convinced by concrete results achieved in the field. Therefore, results must be communicated to them effectively.

The local and national level coordinating committees described in Chapter 6 play a key role as forums for discussion and exchange of views. However, other strategies may also be needed. They include:

• Influencing policy makers. Policy makers of national and NGO development agencies should be encouraged to participate in dialogues on the need for the adoption of policies favourable to participatory development. These policies include appropriate legislation to promote rural people's organizations, including freedom of association as well as reorientation of delivery systems towards the needs of the rural poor. Other policies should promote full integration of women in development, decentralization of decision making, planning and resource allocation, and expansion of non-agricultural employment.

• Influencing development planners and administrators. Many of the development agencies involved in implementation of large-scale programmes and projects may have little or no experience in participatory development. Development planners and implementation agencies can be influenced through meetings and field workshops, periodic informal exchanges of views, briefings on participatory projects, and incorporation of participatory issues in project identification, preparation, appraisal and evaluation missions.

• Influencing local leaders. The support of village leaders is often crucial to a participatory project. This support should be obtained through meetings and project initiation workshops aimed at convincing local traditional and administrative leaders that the project is in their own short- and long-term interest.

• Influencing donors and international development agencies. The support of donors, development agencies and international financial institutions is essential for widespread adoption of the participatory approach. Efforts to obtain this support should aim, first, at convincing those donors and agencies that support participatory projects to continue their assistance. Other donors, development banks and agencies should be influenced through policy dialogues and field workshops to support the participatory approach. It will be crucial to demonstrate the achievements of participatory projects, through effective monitoring and evaluation systems and case studies on their benefits and cost-effectiveness.