Participatory Approaches for Promoting Rural Connectivity: An Exploration of Issues

Titus Moetsabi
SADC Communication Training Adviser
SADC Centre of Communication for Development
Harare, Zimbabwe

This article is a direct result of the FAO/IDRC/SADC/University of Guelph sponsored conference on rural connectivity held in Harare in February 1997 and represents the perspective of someone with a great deal of experience in rural communication for development, applying that perspective to these new tools and trying to come to grips with how the tools might be developed to meet needs at the village level.

The need for participatory approaches

This article will look at ways electronic communication networks (ECNs) can be used to promote participatory exchange of information, knowledge and experiences at the grass roots level. ECN is a new medium of communication, and its casting and content need to be thought through. Participatory approaches can help in ECN design and use by all involved

Before looking at the details of why and how there could be benefits, it is important for us to understand what we mean by "participatory approaches". There are many forms of participation, but the bottom line is that communities participate genuinely if they will derive benefits aimed at satisfying their real felt needs as they define them themselves. These benefits need not solely be material benefits - material benefits only make sense when they satisfy communities' fundamental needs such as subsistence, identity, freedom, protection, affection, understanding, participation, creation and leisure. The material needs accomplished by the development activities we engage in with communities are satisfiers of these actual basic needs.

If participation is a basic need, it is worth looking at the typology of different types of participation so as to put the type of participation that empowers communities in the context of other non-genuine forms of participation. This might help to ensure that we speak the same language when we refer to participation.

How people participate in development projects

Typology	Components of each type
Passive Participation	People participate by being told what is going to happen or has already happened. It is a unilateral announcement by an administration or project management without any listening to people's responses.
Participation in information giving	The information being shared belongs only to external professionals. People participate by answering questions posed by extractive researchers using questionnaire surveys or such similar approaches. People do not have the opportunity to influence proceedings, as the findings of the research are neither shared nor checked for accuracy.
Participation by consultation	People participate by being consulted, and external agents listen to views. These external agents define both problems and solutions, and may modify these in the light of people's responses. Such a consultative process does not concede any share in decision making, and professionals are under no obligation to take on board people's views.
Participation for material benefits	People participate by providing resources such as labour, in return for food, cash or other material incentives. Much on farm research falls in this category, as farmers provide the fields but are not involved in experimentation or the process of learning. It is very common to see this called participation yet people have no stake in prolonging activities when incentives end.
Functional participation	People participate by forming groups to meet predetermined objectives related to the project, which can involve the development or promotion of externally initiated social organization. Such involvement tends not to be at early stages of project cycles or planning, but rather after major decisions have already been made. These institutions tend to be dependent on external initiators and facilitators, but may become self-dependent.
Interactive participation	People participate in joint analysis, which leads to action plans and the formation of new local institutions or the strengthening of existing ones. It tends to involve interdisciplinary methodologies that seek multiple objectives and make use of systematic and structured learning processes. These groups take control/ownership over local decisions, and so people have a stake in maintaining structures or practices.
Self-mobilization	People participate by taking initiatives independent of external institutions to change systems. Such self-initiated mobilization and collective action may or may not challenge existing inequitable distributions of wealth and power.

Source: Pretty et al. 1995: 61

According to Robert Chambers (1997), the three pillars of interactive participation are:

sharing, through which communities themselves share their knowledge, experiences among each other and with the facilitators working with them, internal or external;

methods, through which the communities can interview, map, model, rank, score, analyse, diagram, present and plan their development; and

behaviour and attitudes, through which outside facilitators/ extension workers can convene, catalyse and facilitate communication/programmes and assist people to learn while doing. ECNs are a new participatory interactive communication process whether as e-mail or as web pages. Some people would even posit that web pages need to be made more interactive than at present. Development programmes by governments and non-government organizations to a large degree have not utilized communication as a participatory process. This has led to unsustainable development with resultant failures. ECNs are part of the solution to the problem.

Some of the benefits of ECNs are:

making interactions horizontal rather than hierarchical and this exposes the community to other groups formerly out of reach;
exchange of information, knowledge and experiences takes place in a timely, speedily manner which allows critical decision making to be made strategically; and
a customized network interface, content and connections tailored for the specific interaction groups to encourage their inputting and receiving information, knowledge and experience, i.e., an intranet.

Participation is therefore fostered by putting communities themselves "in the driving seat" with facilitators taking the passenger seats. Practically, this means the ownership and control of the technical, financial, socio-cultural, and institutional (overall community resources) components of a development programme should be vested in villagers themselves.

Implications of the paradigm of participatory development on rural connectivity and the Internet

Structurally, villagers should have an understanding of the systems involved. They need to understand the system of networking they are involved in. This is important if they are to be empowered to get maximum benefit out of the system. Like designing any communication programme, and the communication media and activities that go with it, designing an ECN has several challenges if it is done in a participatory manner:

how to design the system properly through research of the needs of key interaction groups including rural groups, the community, change agents, or facilitators if involved; and
how to design the system properly through a participatory design process.

Such assessment would focus on issues such as:

segmentation of interaction groups by such factors as gender, age groups, occupation, wealth, etc.;
content identification;
subjects and purpose, for example, for awareness, entertainment or training;
packaging of the interface and the content;
using visuals or audio-visuals to assist overcoming gaps of literacy; and
activities that encourage responses.

Some ECN materials may need to be tailored to specific audiences, but this does not preclude connection to the Internet although it focuses on immediate needs for purposes of encouraging participation and developmental objectives. A major issue is how the system will be designed to bridge the first mile with participatory approaches that use other media and channels to encourage people's inputting and receiving relevant information, knowledge and experiences to and from the network, even though they do not have direct access to the computer.screen. Channels such as multimedia, print-outs, radio, audio-tapes, popular theatre, language translations will be important.

An article from Time, (February 3, 1997, pp. 38-39), makes this interesting observation on the relation between ECN and culture:

A survey in the Japanese weekly news magazine Shukan Asahi (performed by e-mailing the top executives of 160 companies to see who wrote back) yielded a bumper crop of technophobes: of about 70 companies that responded, more than half said their presidents did not use a computer, let alone the World Wide Web or e-mail. In this high tech industrial powerhouse, the statistics raised eyebrows. Why the avoidance of networks and PCs? Many Japanese say the problem lurks in the very cultural practices that built Japan: rigid groupism, conformity and steel-stiff hierarchies .... Most Japanese companies still require plans to be submitted in person before the president will stamp his hanko (seal of approval). And, managers still need to go through nemawashii (consensus building) and ringi (circulating drafts for group approval). The result is a gelatinous management channel incapable of making decisions in 'real time' - hours instead of weeks.

From this example, we see that information and communication change has to be rooted in peoples' local cultures if such change is to be taken seriously by the people involved. Participatory consultations with villagers will expose the different cultural trends, which need to be taken note of before they will accept the new technology or realise its full potential.

The following diagram is important to understand the communication and information needs discussion:

'a'	'b'	'c'	'd'	'e'
village farmers	district level	provincial level	central level	other publics

Each part of the chain from 'a' to 'e' will need to determine the type of information it needs to share. Whereas, in terms of packaging, 'a' might need graphics and sound, 'b' might need a map, 'c' might need diagrams, 'd' might need statistical presentations, and 'e' might need a bit of everything from sound to statistics.

Appropriate packaging is thus an important issue to be considered. The fundamental question is, "Who decides the type of packaging and types of information to be sent out to the community?" There are two possibilities:

The horizontal trend in participatory information sharing and communication.

Through participatory rural communication appraisal, establish how 'a' wants communication coming from 'b', 'c', 'd', or 'e', to be packaged when it is received and the type of information wanted from each different point. The reverse is equally true; that is, each point can establish how 'a' can send particular types of information they need in terms of packaging.

The hierarchical trend in participatory information sharing and communication.

Through participatory rural communication appraisal, establish how:

'a' wants certain types of communication coming from 'b' to be packaged;
'b' wants certain types of communication coming from 'c' to be packaged;
'c' wants certain types of communication coming from 'd' to be packaged;
'd' wants certain types of communication coming from 'e' to be packaged.

The reverse is equally applicable.

In both cases referred to above, the computer point could be at village the level itself or at the district level. Preferably, it should be at village level for the villagers to feel and exercise ownership.

Group formation/community organization

Electronic communication networking could easily supercharge the speed of everything from cash flow to customer services in a community. The network in this case is not only a means of facilitating business but the business itself. Since important activities cannot be entrusted to one person, the community will need to be organized/reorganized to deal with the new changes in communication. Changes in communication of this nature bring extreme changes like free-flowing information, and the community needs to be organised for this. Information is power, and investing it in few hands could disempower the other villagers. This can be overcome by group rather than individual training.

The information/communication market place and/or the "electronic communication network knowledge workers"

Village activities are usually conducted under a big tree or in a big grass thatched enclosure with the people sitting together, circular fashion that is intimate. Information received (e.g., for training, marketing, inputs, prices, etc.) could be enlarged from a PC monitor to an overhead projector screen and the villagers could together or in groups discuss and strategize on what action to take next. As soon as they make their decision they could respond via the same medium. Juxtaposed to this is the possibility of the extension worker, the facilitator at village level, being an information worker too. This means people can still meet under the big tree or big grass thatched hut and discuss information they have received and plan together sending back replies. However, the information worker will also play the role of decoding a lot of information, which could be difficult to comprehend or respond to. Although emphasis is placed on group activity, we should not make it seem a must. Whereas in nascent community organizations group approaches are strong, in emergent and mature community organization decisions taken collectively are more and more delegated to individuals to implement or critique.

Functional literacy

If people cannot read and write it is not the end of the world. Programmes can be designed so that people understand interaction in the written word with regards to specific functions. This has been known to work very well with teaching bookkeeping to village groups involved in small-scale enterprises.

Village resource centres

Villagers are not concerned about into food security only. A resource such as electronic communication network would be under-utilised if left for one function only. The people may like such a resource to be linked to development of other things like a library, information on opportunities for school leavers and entertainment. Participatory approaches could also establish different preferred information and communication needs.

User friendly

The systems, the technology itself and the atmosphere should be sensitive to the needs of women, men, children, adults and old people. If conflicts arise in use or content or type of technology, villagers would need to be familiar with conflict mediation and resolution.

References

Chambers, Robert. 1997. Whose reality counts? Putting the first last. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.

Pretty, Jules et al. 1995. Participatory learning and action: a trainer's guide. London: IIED.

Time. 1997. Personal computers in Japan. February 3, 1997, pp. 38-39.