The contribution of beneficiary participation to development project effectiveness
| Date | 01 January 1987 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230070102 |
| Author | Warren A. Van Wicklin,Kurt Finsterbusch |
| Published date | 01 January 1987 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
Vol.
7,
1-23
(1987)
The contribution
of
beneficiary participation to
development project effectiveness
KURT
FINSTERBUSCH
University
of
Maryland
and
WARREN
A.
VAN
WICKLIN
I11
Massachuserrs lnsriture
of
Technology
SUMMARY
Criticism
of
development projects is widespread, and blame for disappointing results
is
cast
in many directions. One line
of
criticism which has become quite strong in the recent
development literature is that development projects are too top-down and need to be more
bottom-up (e.g. Maguire, 1981). Projects should involve more participation by beneficiaries.
In fact, some would argue that real development, by definition, must involve beneficiaries
in their own improvement (e.g. Gran, 1983a,b). Without participation the people may
benefit but not develop from a project. Thus participation has intrinsic value.
As the recognition
of
the value
of
public, popular, beneficiary,
or
community participation
has increased,
so
has the range
of
what
is
meant by participation. Some authors have
expanded the concept to mean empowerment and capacity-building, sometimes including
institution-building. In this paper we do not attempt to redefine participation
per
se.
but
aim instead to make an inventory
of
the principal concepts that have evolved in the
literature
so
far, elicit a general model
of
participatory development projects, deduce the
central implicit hypotheses from this literature on the relationship between participation
and project effectiveness, and statistically test these hypotheses from the empirical evidence
provided by
AID'S
series
of
52
Impact Evaluation Reports. Our major question is how
much does beneficiary participation contribute
to
project effectiveness?
RECENT HISTORY AND LITERATURE
ON
PARTICIPATION AND
DEVELOPMENT
Beneficiary
participation has been
an
issue
in
development projects from the
Qeginning, but its significance has increased principally since it became part of the
official rhetoric.
A
brief history of
US
foreign aid legislation reveals the
growing
importance of participation
in
AID
development projects. Title
IX
of
the Foreign
Professor Finsterbusch
is
in the Department
of
Sociology, University
of
Maryland, College Park,
20742, Maryland, USA. Mr Van Wicklin is a doctoral studcnt in the Department
of
Political Science
at the Massachusetts Institute
of
Technology
0271-2075/87/010001-23$11
.SO
0
1987 by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
2
K.
Finsterbusch and
W.
A.
Van Wicklin
III
Assistance Act of 1966 called upon AID to place emphasis on ‘assuring maximum
participation
in
the task
of
economic development on the part
of
the people of
the developing countries through the encouragement of democratic private and
local governmental initiatives’. The implicit assumption was that the beneficiaries
in developing countries, for the most part, were too backward to initiate develop-
ment themselves, and that local government would be responsible for taking the
lead. They feared that ‘while decentralization is generally desirable under Title
IX,
there
is
the
danger that indiscriminate decentralization may actually harm
local government by prematurely overloading
it
with responsibilities
it
cannot
meet’ (Millikan
el al.,
1966, p, 9). AID was concerned about strengthening the
capacity of local government to contribute to national planning and thus make
aid more productive.
The humanistic rationale for participation was made explicit in the creation
of
the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) in 1969. The highly critical report of the
Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs found that channelling resources through
Latin American governments had stiffened resistance to change. The Congressmen
most responsible for Title
IX,
Donald Fraser and Bradford
Morse
in
particular,
attempted to ensure IAF adherence to humanistic principles, even
if
AID would
not. The IAF’s three basic policies were: (1) to support efforts at self-help,
(2)
to
further wider and more effective participation, and
(3)
to encourage the growth
of democratic institutions (Meehan, 1978). The IAF would operate independently
of the official foreign policy machinery, work mainly through private organizations,
and respond to funding requests originating from the beneficiaries (in Latin
America) themselves. One
of
the specific types
of
projects that would be supported
were those that contributed to local capacity for problem-solving. Participatory
institutions would be favoured. This was a radical departure from AID’s modus
operandi. but the State Department supported the IAF because they feared that
the AID bill might otherwise fail. Thus greater participation became a statutory
objective for the IAF independent of its contribution to project success.
From this point forward, the call for increasing beneficiary participation and
their problem-solving capacity accelerated. By the mid-1970s it had become the
conventional wisdom. A communiqui from the Third World Forum in Karachi
(1975) is typical: ‘The real focus should be on the satisfaction
of
basic human
needs and
on
a meaningful participation of the masses in the shaping of economic
and social change; the policies of self-reliance should be encouraged, with the
emphasis
on
a self-confident and creative use
of
local resources, manpower,
technology,and knowledge’ (cited in Cochrane, 1979, p.
3).
The New Directions
legislation, mandated by Congress in 1973 to direct AID’s efforts at the poor, and
the
basic human needs doctrine enunciated by World Bank President Robert
McNamara to redirect that organization’s priorities, brought participation in devel-
opment projects
to
centre-stage in official circles.
Simultaneous with the institutionalization of participation
in
bilateral and multi-
lateral development agencies’ policies was the evolution and expansion
of
the
literature (mainly American) among academic theorists, grassroots practitioners,
and development professionals. Not only was there concern that existing
approaches to development were not yielding the desired results, but that the
development process itself was contributing to the further underdevelopment
of
the more marginal sectors of the poor majority.
To continue reading
Request your trial