Turkana Country's Emphasis On The Participatory Approach

The failure of mainstream development forced many people to think of development more holistically. An alternative approach is used to enhance development in the Turkana County and Burkina Faso. The USADF’s emphasis on the participatory approach has allowed the citizens to work with local organizations to find sustainable ways to meet their social and economic needs and to improve the quality of their lives. This approach allows the powerless to become empowered, and allows men/women to become effective leaders and planners of their own development. The decentralization of power gives the local organizations the substantial autonomy necessary to enable citizen participation. The USADF funded grantees, the local organization, then the local …show more content…
Due to the changing understanding of the concept of development, people need to also change their understanding of the role of people and relations between people. Participatory development is only effective if organizations and practitioners start see human resource development as more crucial than the economic and technical development. Practitioners expect that programs can lead to transformative changes in empowerment and poverty. However, much of participatory development has treated communities as socially homogeneous, and participant selection depend on the nature of power relationships (King, Pg. 101, 2007). Because of this, some citizens lack the capacity to monitor and hold the service providers accountable while the elites get most program benefits. The relationship between the practitioners and the community have to be mutually productive. It is also the practitioners job to help people shed fear, regain confidence and providing a wider perspective on issues/solutions to the marginalized group. Local citizens have different ideas and perceptions of what their priorities are. Due to the nature of the participatory approach, practitioners may only get the official story about a community and the project/policy ends up being shaped by the dominant in the community. At time like this, women are the most vulnerable ones. Many cultures foster the belief that perceived male as superior, and women as inferior. Development is unsustainable without addressing these differences. Consulting with the locals can also backfire. A basic human characteristic, to be motivated by self-interest which leads to competitive behavior, may impede, hinder or block realization of the potential benefits of participatory approaches (Mitchell, Pg. 131,