People Participation Key To Development

The voluntary, disciplined and organised involvement of the people in development process is absolutely necessary. The development of an economy requires many ingredients such as capital, infrastructure, technical manpower, managerial ability, etc. But one of the factors contributing substantially to rapid development is the people's participation. Consequently, people's participation has become a rhetoric. However, people's participation is frequently advocated but seldom put into practice. 

People's participation may mean many things to many people and in different contexts. But it is, in general, the participation of the beneficiaries in decision-making, implementation, evaluation and also in benefits. It is a means of improving the quality and effectiveness of the various kinds of investments. In such a participatory approach, the local communities participate in selecting priority investments, in mobilising local resources for development purposes, in implementing projects and in monitoring the agencies and contractors on projects. 

Decision making

People's participation is essential because the government efforts alone cannot be adequate to speed up the pace of development. As it is said development is difficult if it does not come into the minds of the people. If people realise that the programmes launched by the government are their own and meant for them and their fortune depend more or less on the success of such programmes and cooperate wholeheartedly for the success of the programmes, it will be far easier to realise the objectives of the programmes and perpetuate its benefits. 

In many cases, decision making without the involvement of the beneficiaries misdirected the funds, while the participatory approach succeeded in improving their allocation. It is on account of this very basis the consensus is growing that people will have to be given proper role in the process of development from decision-making to benefits. On the contrary, if the programmes are encroached upon from above, people are likely to be indifferent even if they are directly beneficial to them. The growing popularity of the NGOS in executing local development works strongly supports the need of people's participation.

People' participation as a slogan is not a new concept even in the case of Nepal. The term is so popular that no finance minister has so far been able to omit this in the budget speech. It was reflected in various policies and programmes of past governments, be it land reform programme, or co-operative movement, or remote area, small farmers and rural development programmes, or in the economic plans. The economic plans realised that in the absence of people's participation, development cannot tally with people’s wishes; fruits of development cannot be equitably distributed and the development becomes expensive. But despite various provisions, people's participation remained limited to policy booklets. 

People’s participation was emphasised in Decentralization Act which was expected to bring massive people’s participation since it had also stressed the even distribution of the fruits of development. Realising the significance of people’s participation, successive governments launched Rural Self-reliance Development Fund targeting the people below poverty line. One of the objectives of the past budgets of the governments was to involve general public in the mainstream of national development. Construction works such as roads, drinking water facilities, irrigation and their repair and maintenance works will be carried out by the coordinated efforts of government office, district development committee and consumer group. 

Similarly, farmers will be involved in construction and management of irrigation projects, in marketing and storage of agricultural products and inputs. To make people's participation effective and smooth, there have been government effort to organise local community organisations, sajha organisation and consumer group. People's participation so far has been mere contribution of the rural people towards national development, but not the participation in sharing benefits. The lesson is that the benefits should not be shared only by party workers. In the rural areas, labour is the main source of livelihood. Hence, voluntary labour should not be converted into forced mobilisation of labour. 

Socio-economic constraint

The situation will be explosive if the practice of swallowing a large amount of government grants by government officials and party workers and works completed by a kind of forced labour. Corruption at any level will have to be strongly dealt with. Similarly, the appropriate mechanisms for intensifying people's participation on the massive scale at the village level will have to be explored.  In any country, the bureaucracy is reluctant to transfer their power to the people, on the basis of which they are used to displaying their superiority. 

There are also socio-economic constraint to participation. The different classes of people are yet to be mixed wholeheartedly with one another. Participation in decision making and execution is politically sensitive. The groups with vested interests are likely to oppose the involvement of the poor farmers in making decisions and setting priorities. Besides, it is difficult to make the participation self-perpetuating due to the absence of effective community-based organisations and widespread illiteracy and ignorance. This very factor has led many people-oriented programmes to failure. The policy of people’s participation is still relevant in a country like Nepal but it should be translated into action instead of just making it a mere development cliché. 

(The author is a professor of business economics)