The Future of Development Management - Dissertation Example

The Future of Development Management Introduction: This paper provides an analysis on why participatory development is not always transformative. It is important to explain that participatory development normally seeks to involve the local population in various development projects. This is because if the local people are involved in these projects, then they will have a sense of ownership of the project under consideration (Polidano, 1999). Furthermore, they will manage to identify the problems that they face, hence the policy formulators, will develop policies aimed at solving the problems under consideration. Participatory development was first introduced in the 1970s, and ever since, it has taken a variety of forms. Participatory development is an example of a basic needs approach to development, and this is because it main aim is to empower the poor and the vulnerable within the society. Furthermore, the major aim of participatory development is to come up with a development initiative, which is sustainable, hence transforming the society. This transformation needs to be long lasting, and this is mainly because the problems that have been facing the society are solved, and the solution implemented in an effective manner. However, the major question to ask is if participatory development is really transformative. This question is controversial in nature, and this is mainly because there are conflicting arguments on whether participatory development is transformative in nature. Those who argue that participatory development is transformative; base their arguments on two important grounds. One is that it helps in the promotion of social economic development, and the second issue is that it helps in the empowerment of the citizens of a state (Pieterse, 2010). Providers of aid normally argue that participatory development helps in the effective use of aid, on various sectors, and it helps to generate information on the needs of the citizens, hence secure their support in the implementation of development policies or activities. Furthermore, they believe that allowing people to participate in development initiatives, is valuable, and this is mainly because it is a method of empowering people. Based on these facts, participatory development is transformative in nature. However, those who argue that participatory development is not transformative, base their arguments on the difficulty of implementing this concept of participatory development (Willis, 2005). Amongst these challenges include rigid administrative structures, difficulty in reaching the poor, issues of inequality that touches on gender and disability, etc. This paper takes a stand that participatory development is not transformative, and it seeks to defend this position by highlighting and addressing the various challenges, in regard to participatory development. The major challenges addressed in this paper touches on difficulties in reaching the poor, monitoring and evaluation, difficulty in communication and access to communication, poor administrative procedures or structures, gender discrimination, and poor communication. While discussing these factors that make participatory development not to be transformative, the researcher will also identify the various ways of addressing these challenges. One notable method lies on the policy formulators, who should have the responsibility of coming up with methods aimed at addressing the problems under consideration. Inefficient Administrative Structures: In as much as a variety of donors are embracing this concept of participatory development, their administrative structures, and the skills of their employees or staff remain to be top-down. This administrative top-down structure is not only limited to the donor agencies, but also the recipient agencies are faced with a similar problem. This type of administrative structure is not conducive for participatory development or approaches. For instance, in the discussion of the Indonesian poverty reduction initiative, there are difficulties in making a change to the bureaucratic culture that is predominant in the country, for purposes of allowing the devolution of poor to the local communities (Crawford and Mdimi, 1999). This is an aspect that limits participatory approaches or development in Indonesia. Furthermore,, some powerful communities in Indonesia are under the domination of powerful elite, who normally makes it difficult for the poor to have an access to the services aimed at removing poverty amongst them (Greig, Hulme and Turner, 2007). This is because of the top-down structure of the governance procedure; hence there is a need of reforming it, if participatory approaches to development should be a success. In a declaration, made in Paris, in the year 2005, donors were urged to initiate changes in their development strategies, procedures, and institutions. This was for purposes of ensuring that, these agencies are able to develop a more inclusive administrative approach that made it possible for people, who are at their lower ranks to participate in the development approaches (Rist, 2008). It is important to explain that because of a top down administrative structure, in most governments, donor agencies, and the recipient agencies, then this process of participatory development is a failure, and it is not transformative. Furthermore, it is virtually difficult to manage and maintain complex and large development initiatives through a bureaucratic style of management or administration (Cooke, 2003). This is because it would be difficult for the management to respond to the needs of the local people, and it is difficult to adapt to the various changes, of the needs of the local people. Furthermore, a top-down structure of governance does not augur well with the trends of participatory development. This is because it limits the ability of the participants in this development process to share information and decision making. It is important to explain that a top-down structure of governance is a characteristic of a centralized governance system. Almost all governments in the world are centralized. It is highly difficult for non-governmental organization to initiate development activities without the support of the government. With their centralized nature therefore, the participatory development initiatives of the government are always a failure. It is these rigid structures of administration that makes participatory development not be to be transformative (McCourt and Gulrajani, 2010). To solve this problem therefore, there is a need of introducing a decentralized form of governance or administration. Decentralization will give the managers of a project more autonomy in making decisions, and hence involving the participants, in the process of decision making. This is an important for any successful initiatives, of participatory development. Therefore, participatory development is not transformative, mainly because of the top-down structure of governance, which makes it impossible for the process of decision making to be shared. Communication, Research and Evaluation Problems: Communication is an important element for participatory development to achieve and attain its objectives. However, under participatory development, donors and participants are always faced with problems of communication. This is because these groups of people normally emanate from different cultural backgrounds (Pritchett and Woolcock, 2004). These differences have a negative impact on the manner which the two groups are able to communicate with one another. Furthermore, it is important to explain that the approaches to participatory communication are always aimed at linking research with development. This is problematic, in the sense that the aims of carrying out a research might be different with the aims of initiating a development project. Development initiatives normally take a long period of time, as opposed to research, which is always conducted on a short period of time (Dar and Cooke, 2008). Another major problem is that a lot of research projects, normally pay more attention to the needs of the donors, and that of the researchers. This is as opposed to looking at the various interests of the communities, whose development policies are aimed to serve. This has a negative effect to the application of the development projects (Hettne, 1995). This is because the donors and researchers will aim at implementing and developing projects that serves their needs; as opposed to projects that serves the interests and the needs of the community. This in turn would lead to the failure of the project, in catering for the needs of the community. Therefore, failure to communicate, and the actions of the donors and researcher to develop policies aimed at catering for their interests limits the ability of participatory development to transform the society or communities, by solving the social problems that face them (Chakrabaty and Chand, 2012). To solve this problem, there is a need of using better participatory development communication methods. Participatory development communication refers to the use the mass media, inter-personal communication methods, and other traditional methods of communication for purposes of empowering communities to visualize and identify the various solutions to their problems. This therefore means that for participatory development to occur there is a need of using communication tools that will enable communities to provide information that identifies their problems, and a recommendation on the solution to these problems (Kothari and Minogue, 2002). The researchers and donors on the other hand, should not be focused on serving and catering for their interests, but for the development needs of the communities under consideration. To achieve this objective, they have to view communication as a method of sharing meanings, perception, knowledge and world views. Communication should therefore be balanced, between researchers, donors, and the members of the communities in which they intend to initiate the development activities. Through this action, chances are high that the community members will own project, and they will work hand in hand with the agencies responsible for initiating the developments activities and programs. This would in turn lead to the success of the development projects, and hence transform the society. But because of these communication problems, and the need to satisfy the desires of the donors first, as opposed to that of the society, then participatory development is not transformative. It is Slow and a Costly Process: Participatory development is not a transformative process, because it is a slow and very costly process. This is when it is compared to other traditional forms and types of development. A project, normally takes a long period of time, if an individual has to work, engages, and arrive to a consensus with the local communities or societies. This is as opposed to when the initiators of the project would not require consensus with the societies, or communities where they seek to initiate the project. This process of achieving consensus is always a slow and a difficult process. This is because the stakeholders of the project have different goals, objectives and interests. Making sure that these interests are aligned into one; therefore becomes a slow process, and this puts a limit on the time frame, required for the project to be accomplished. It is important to explain that a development initiative that takes a considerable period of time to be implemented may not be beneficial to the society. This is because the society could have found some other means of solving the problem that the initiative aimed at solving. This in turn, could result to wastage of resources, money and time. Participatory development is also expensive to start, when it is compared to a more traditional type of development (Allen and Thomas, 2000). Because of the high costs involved in coming up with participatory development, then chances are high that its initiators will be limited in funding the development initiatives within the community or the society. This means that, this process will be inefficient in serving the needs of the society; therefore, it would partially, or fail to transform the society where it is initiated. Based on this fact, the best method of ensuring that participatory development activities achieve their objectives is when there is sufficient funds, which is large enough to ensure that it carters for all the development needs identified. Furthermore, participatory development is under criticism for taking care of a small percentage of the population, when it is compared to other traditional methods of development. This therefore means that participatory development only carters for the needs of a few portion of the society, and hence it is not transformative (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff, 2010). For any development initiative to be transformative, then it must have the capability of solving the needs of a large section of the community. Furthermore, taking care of the development of a small portion of a community or society, would lead to unequal growth and development, and this is not a positive social and economic issue. Unequal growth and development would always lead to strife, and conflicts, and this would in turn, scale back, the achievements of participatory development initiatives. It is important to explain that the major reason for the failure of participatory development activities to serve a wide number of people is based on the fact it is a costly process that requires a large amount of aid or money. Issues Regarding Gender: Disability and Gender Studies indicates that participatory development normally becomes complicated, if marginalized groups, such as young people, women, and people with disability are involved in the developmental process, without addressing the issues that plays a role in contributing to their continual disempowerment. A good example is the 11 Rural Support Programs that was initiated in the rural regions of Pakistan. The initiators of this program were able to provide micro-finance loans to women, and other vulnerable groups within the society (Mowles, 2010). However, the major weakness of this program is that it failed to address the cultural attitudes and perception that the men within the community had towards their women. The impact of this failure was the inability of the loans under consideration to help and empower the women under consideration. This is because the loans given to women were used by their husbands for personal businesses. This made women to repay loans that they were not using. This had an impact of negatively affecting their growth and development. These problems of gender inequality normally have a negative impact on the success of a participatory development scheme or programs. They limit the ability of the initiators of the program to efficiently serve the needs of the marginalized groups (AbouAssi, 2010). For purposes of serving such kind of a problem, there is a need of regularly monitoring the relationships between the genders, and coming up with a solution on how to bridge the gap that exists, between the male and the female genders between the societies. On most occasions, the best method of achieving this situation is by addressing the cultural beliefs and attitudes which play a role in causing discrimination. Furthermore, it is important to explain that the disable are always the poorest people within the community, or the society (Rapley, 2002). Based on this fact, they normally suffer from discrimination, and they are least likely to be involved in the development initiatives, or even benefit from them. A transformative participatory development initiative has to factor in, the needs of the disabled, involving them in the decision making process (Haynes, 2008). Furthermore, the initiators of this process have to address the various causes of stigma that are associated with the people living with disability. It is only by addressing these problems that the initiators of participatory development programs will manage to implement a program or policy that would transform the entire society. Just like participatory development initiatives, traditional development programs also face the challenges that come from gender. This is because they normally operate in rural areas, and the traditional perceptions about women and men, still exists. This makes it difficult for these programs to achieve efficiency in the promotion of development activities in the regions where they are contracted to implement their policies. Conclusion: The notion that participatory development is not transformative is controversial, depending on the side of argument. For instance, other argue that participatory development is transformative, and this is mainly because it involves the community into the decision making process, in regard to the various development issues that the community seeks to undertake. By involving these communities in the decision making process, then chances are high, that the policy formulators will develop policies that have the capability of transforming the society or the community under consideration. However, this argument that participatory development is transformative because it involves the community or society in the development initiatives is faulty. This is mainly because of the various challenges that policy formulators normally face, while engaging in the process of participatory development. One such challenge lies on the top-down administrative structure of the donor agencies, government institutions, and the recipient agencies. Participatory development normally requires that every stakeholder should have a role in the decision making process. However, this is not always the case. This is based on the fact that the decision making is always bureaucratic in nature, in most donor agencies, and government institutions. For example, before a decision is made, the top managers of the donor agencies and institutions responsible for implementing the development initiative developed have to approve the plan or activity. On most occasions, this would take a long period of time, limiting the effects of the policy under consideration. Furthermore, a rigid structure of administration makes it difficult for the policy formulators to identify the actual problems that face a community, and the best approach to use in solving the problems under consideration. This is because the local people are not involved in the decision making process, and managers will only formulate policies, based on assumptions and perceptions on what is good for the communities. Furthermore, participatory development initiatives are always marred with communication problems. This is because of the different cultures that exist, between the implementing agencies, and the local communities. Most organizations that engage in participatory development always come from outside the community, and hence, they have different languages, and cultural perceptions. This limits the ability of these parties to communicate with each other, in an efficient and effective manner. Cultural perceptions regarding gender also play a great role, in limiting the effectiveness of participatory development. This is because the participation of women, and other marginalized groups is always treated with suspicion, and it is not effective in promoting development within the communities under consideration. The best method of solving this problem is by coming up with a solution that will help to address the cultural issues that create stigma and discrimination of the marginalized groups within the society. This in turn will make policy formulators to achieve success in involving everybody in various development projects within the communities. Bibliography: AbouAssi, K. (2010). "International development management through a Southern lens." Public Administration and Development 30(2): 116-124. Allen, T and A. Thomas (eds) (2000) Poverty and Development Into the 21st Century, 2nd ed., OUP. Brinkerhoff, J. M. and D. W. Brinkerhoff (2010). "International development management: A Northern perspective." Public Administration and Development 30(2): 102-116. Chakrabaty, B. and Chand, P. 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