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PRINCIPLES OF PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (PCD) Community-based approach A community-based approach motivates women, girls, boys, and men in their community to participate in a process which allows them to express their needs and to decide their own future with a view to their empowerment, ownership, and sustainability. It recognises that local needs and vulnerabilities have often local roots; it seeks to understand the community’s concerns and priorities, mobilizing community members and engaging them in activities and programming. The focus is on helping the community members organize themselves to solve their own problems. The role of RC/RC is to build, rebuild, or strengthen the community’s capacities to respond to vulnerability (risks). ETHICS OF PARTICIPATORY ASSESSMENT A participatory assessment of needs (PRA) is carried out in the spirit of a shared responsibility for reducing vulnerability of all members of the community and it is an essential component of community-based work. Groups which have less social, economic, and political power and are less well represented in formal leadership structures have specific risks, which may be overlooked in assessment and planning process. A participatory assessment should observe ways in which age and gender combine with other social, economic, and political factors to marginalize and disadvantage certain sections of the population. A proper participatory assessment involves men, women, children, and older people, as well as people of diverse backgrounds in the community. When undertaking a participatory assessment, the people of concern: - do not have to participate in the assessment if they prefer not to; - should not be prompted to give information in public which embarrasses them or makes them feel uncomfortable; - must be permitted to express themselves freely without interruption and without having the information they provide “challenged” negatively; - must be reassured that confidentiality of information sources will be respected; - must be told the purpose and process of the assessment and be informed of its limitations, so that false expectations are not raised. Teams conducting a participatory assessment: - should be aware of any inconveniences associated with the project (e.g. time away from family or job); - must be told of the potential benefits arising from the assessment. However, the PRA team will not receive any direct financial or other personal gain from participating; - should plan to discuss with women and men, as well as younger children and adolescents separately; - should plan to meet groups and individuals with specific needs (e.g. invalids), and other groups that have been identified as at risk (e.g. single-parent households, grandparents with young children, specific ethnic groups); - should agree on how to provide feedback to the community after completing the participatory assessment. USING THE RESULTS OF PARTICIPATORY ASSESSMENTS IN PCD Inform the community of PRA results, and offer a way to participate in decision making based on PRA analysis. Follow up on agreements and commitments made. The results of PRA can be developed to intervention ideas applying a rights-based approach, which means: - Analysing who bears the obligation to uphold any specific rights (e.g. a right for primary education); - Assessing the capacity of rights-holders to claim their rights and of duty-bearers to uphold their obligations, and then develop strategies to build these capacities. PCD is developing areas of partnership between the local branch and a local community, starting from and building on the humanitarian approach, proceeding to mobilisation of human resources (through a rights-based approach), and further to mobilisation of material resources and to planning and creating activities or projects in cooperation. Every step should leave the partners stronger in their performance. In the beginning, the partnership may be established between a small team of community members and representatives of the local branch, but backed up by the movement cooperation (IFRC/PNS). Depending on the organisation skills and capacities of both the community and the local RC branch, the created activities may include All launched activities should Be based on the readiness of each partner to take ownership of the activity, and thus ensure the capacity building aspect of PCD. Moreover, local ownership is a requisite for sustained results or for the sustainability of new activities. Ownership of the community can be showed, for example, by the number of people participating in the planning of the activities; or by commitments made by community organisations. Ownership of the local RC branch... Balanced ownership between the local RC and the community is not required; the community may take ownership of some activities, and act as a supporting partner in others. The initial community team may, in time, also become a new local RC unit, part of the organisation of the RC branch as well as of the community. Target human needs, focusing especially on the Global Agenda goals of the Movement: MONITORING AND EVALUATION - outcomes, impact, and processes - participation Example: Tackling Water & Sanitation problems (based on PRA and community’s prioritisation) as PCD project means studying the health, poverty, social exclusion, and other human problems related to water and sanitation, together with community members and using the information available from other sources and stakeholders; finding out every information available on the causes of the problems; making a plan according to rights-based approach to address the problem in cooperation with responsible (local) governmental organisations; and planning and implementing measures and activities which the community organisation with local RC can cope with and collected support (including RC/RC partners) can finance, to bring improvement in the related health and social issues. These improvements will be measured by the community members, and reported to the community and to other stakeholder organisations. Further activities will be taken as is needed, and as knowledge and capacities to plan measures and implement the plans increases. |
About us and PCD
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