Abstract
Over the last decades, concepts of participation and community-based approaches have gained increased attention and popularity in development spheres. Participation today, an often seen ‘buzzword’ in development, has established itself as a key component on international development agendas, as traditional ‘top-down approaches’ to development have given way to ‘bottom-up approaches’
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that emphasize local control over projects and the use of local knowledge by e.g. including local beneficiaries in decision-making processes. The ‘up rise’ of participation is seen in the widespread use of participation in development practice, often figuring as a key feature and strategy in development programming implemented by a wide range of actors, e.g. larger international development agencies, non-governmental organizations as well as governmental instances. Participation has been promoted for various beneficial reasons – to exemplify, it has been assumed to render development projects ‘better’, more efficient and responsive to local needs, while also enabling to increase a sense of ownership of projects, closely also linked to the achievement of long-term sustainability of projects. On the other hand, the much-promoted notion, in some instances considered as a ‘panacea’ for solving various development challenges, has simultaneously been contested and criticized on multiple grounds. Some earlier evaluations on participatory projects have in fact shown meager impact of the practice of participation and more broadly critiques have pointed out that participation does not automatically generate ‘better’ development or empowerment of local people. It has also been pointed out that participation is much a power struggle in which all cannot participate equally. Moreover, participation depends largely on its context of implementation including social, cultural and economic forces that come to interplay, thus influencing how participation emerges in a given setting. Participation is a multifaceted and complex notion and the need for gaining a more thorough understanding of it has been widely advanced in the literature on participatory development.
This research focused on examining the notion and practice of participation in development and more specifically the practice of participation in the field of primary education in conflict-affected Northern Uganda. This was done in addition to a review of relevant literature by closely investigating a community-based participatory intervention for improving quality of education in governmental primary schools implemented by the Dutch International non-governmental organization War Child Holland (WCH). The intervention was used as a case study for understanding how participation emerges in practice in the context of education in Northern Uganda i.e. by understanding the forms and impact of participation but also the challenges related to its practice. The research, conducted as part of the evaluation of the development intervention researched, applied a case study approach and used qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions as well as a drawing activity with younger respondents in 14 governmental primary schools visited across seven districts of Northern Uganda and the sub-region of Karamoja in the Northeast.
The results from the study shed light on the multidimensionality and complexity of the notion of participation in practice in the field of education in Northern Uganda as local stakeholders participated in multiple ways in the project implementation and this at most stages of the project cycle. With reference to earlier research on participation this allows to characterize the practice of participation as ‘genuine’ and ‘active’ as opposed to ‘passive’ less powerful forms of participation, and this namely due to the opportunity for beneficiaries to participate in decision-making about project activities, that rendered the project highly responsive to local needs. The study confirms the necessity and usefulness in considering the context of implementation for truly comprehending the concept both in theory and practice. Furthermore, the study reflects upon the experience with the participatory process in the Northern Ugandan school setting and the role participation came to play in the quest to improve quality of education. Albeit the project being accompanied by other ‘buzzwords’ such as sustainability and ownership that it aimed to achieve through participation, the linkages between the participatory process and the actual outcomes remain vague, and also vary between the schools. This further suggested that participatory processes, much context dependent, cannot and should not be taken for granted though their usefulness neither undermined.
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