Local authorities are a natural ally in the regular Red Cross work in communities. In participatory community development they are a major local stakeholder, which is involved since the start of the process. 
The local authorities have been a main partner in most of our activities in communities during the years. In the most common situation, they also lack resources to provide what is needed in the vulnerable communities and are also struggling to do their job well.  So they are interested to participate in the community development as a way to improve the situation and share resources with donor resources.

From another perspective, authorities are also struggling with the passiveness of people in taking care of their own communities. On a daily basis mayors and other officials are faced with expectations of local people to provide the same services as in the old times, while they simply cannot. Therefore they are interested to work together with the Red Cross in building self-responsibility of the people. In many cases they were keen to share professional expertize and often - to learn community mobilization approaches that might help them in the future. They are in most cases willing to work together with the Red Cross as it builds their own political image. Here comes the delicate part.
The relations with local authorities in participatory community development are very different from those in relief operation, disaster response or any other typical Red Cross activity. First, authorities are not neutral. We are.  Or try to be, at all costs.

The role of authorities in PCD has always depended very much on the level of democracy in the particular community.  We had mayors who were regular PRA team members. We had mayors who deliberately did not take part in PRA to avoid influencing people's opinions. We also had mayors who tried to "kidnap" the process and guide the PCD to their own political or personal interests. We had mayors who had to explain in public why they are not doing well their job. Amazingly, where we succeeded to establish a real participatory process, local people understand the difficulties of the authorities and are willing to help them to improve. Where the problems were in the attitudes of the authorities towards a specific group or a bad management, the open process of participation made them more responsive.

But above all - to keep our neutrality we have done our best to stick to RC Fundamental Principles and the principles of democracy - privacy of people's opinions, decisions made in a participatory way, and avoiding to judge anything in the communities. It is the local people to judge, take decisions and plan actions. We only provide instruments for it. But seems that was already a lot.

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