Technology of

Participation
What is Technology of Participation (ToP) is a
powerful collection of structured
Technology of facilitation methods that transform
Participation? the way groups think, talk and work
together. They enable highly
energized, inclusive and meaningful
group collaboration that lead to
successful outcomes.
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

• Citizen participation is a process through which citizens

influence public decisions that affect their lives and the lives of
other citizens.
• The participation is active when citizens interact with their
elected officials or the staff of a local government to influence a
public policy decision.
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

• The participation can also be passive when citizens simply

attend a public meeting to receive information on the status of a
new government programme or when they show up to vote at
an election.
• The most effective citizen participation brings people together
to learn, discuss and give their input. These opportunities are
particularly useful for building a consensus that can be a
meaningful guide for government action.
How to Start?
Identify your goal - To select the most appropriate approach to citizen participation, it is important to identify your purpose.
Typical purposes are to:
• Inform the public about LA initiatives and keep citizens informed as they take part in the decision-making process.
• Educate the public about a problem, or the rationale for a local initiative, and the advantages and disadvantages of various
alternatives.
• Solicit information from the public to augment other sources of information.
• Consult with the public to learn what they know and how they feel about a municipal problem or initiative.
• Involve the public in planning to develop programme goals, strategies and visions for the future.
• Obtain responses from the public about the impact of a municipal initiative on them or their neighbourhood.
• Provide comments on how public responses were considered on issues or the impact of municipal initiatives and activities.
• Involve members of the public directly in decision-making through participation in on-going committees.
Basic Principles

The goal of citizen participation is to develop effective citizen and LA collaboration on a project or process. To
be successful, it is critical that all parties involved convey their respect for each other and for the value of citizen
involvement and citizen/municipality collaboration in general.

The following strategies will ensure more successful citizen outreach and involvement.
Plan the Events Ahead
Few things are more frustrating than being asked for feedback or involvement without enough time to respond.
It can feel disrespectful, as if the participation is not really wanted or valued. Make sure there is enough time
built into your public process to provide citizens with a meaningful opportunity to participate.

Explain the Process, Expectations and Time Lines

When you communicate with citizens during an outreach and involvement process, clarify early on what you
expect from them and what citizens can expect from you. Clarity will help avoid frustration and unrealistic
expectations.
Go to the People
When setting up participatory events, wherever possible, look for locations that are convenient to the people.
Generally, you will have better attendance and people will feel more comfortable when meetings are located in
familiar and convenient settings.

Listen to People
At public meetings, record public comments on flipcharts. This technique provides you with a useful written
record of the feedback that you received at the meeting, and at the same time, visibly conveys that you are
taking people's comments seriously. As the project progresses, describe how citizen participation has helped to
shape and influence the process and project outcomes.
Follow Checklist Based on Foundation Principles
Use the following checklist as you begin to plan a public involvement effort. It is designed to jump-start your
thinking and help you make sure you haven't overlooked anything significant. It will help you clarify your goals
for the outreach project. Once your goals are clear, it will be much easier to determine which outreach and
involvement strategies will be most effective. Guiding principles can be as follows:
• Mutual respect
• Teamwork
• Knowledge and ability
• Coordination
• Cooperation
• Respect for differences
• Leadership
• Patience
• Positive attitudes
Follow Checklist Based on Foundation Principles
Use the following checklist as you begin to plan a public involvement effort. It is designed to jump-start your
thinking and help you make sure you haven't overlooked anything significant. It will help you clarify your goals
for the outreach project. Once your goals are clear, it will be much easier to determine which outreach and
involvement strategies will be most effective. Guiding principles can be as follows:
• Mutual respect
• Teamwork
• Knowledge and ability
• Coordination
• Cooperation
• Respect for differences
• Leadership
• Patience
• Positive attitudes
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

Ideally, a good facilitator who wants to promote

citizen participation should be able to guide people
to analyze their problems and find practical pathways
to resolve them by themselves, with or without
outside support. Experience shows that playing the
role of a facilitator requires patience, discipline and
special skills acquired through reasonable training
and practice. In order to make the programme a
success, facilitators need to be skillful to handle the
following tasks.
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

• Conducting participatory community consultative sessions to assess situations and

pulling out community ideas relating to problems/issues.
• Presenting systematically, the problems/issues identified.
• Analyzing problems/issues together with community members so that community
solutions to problems can be identified.
• Using participatory methodologies/tools effectively to generate community
participation in planning and implementing interventions.
• Moderating participatory planning sessions and placing all suggested interventions
together in the form of a plan.
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

• Writing project proposals on the basis of the data/information generated at the

participatory community consultations.
• Incorporating village plans into the LA’s annual planning, implementation and
management.
• Implementing proposed interventions/solutions to resolve the problems/issues of
citizens.
• Drilling deep down into problems and reaching needy people for extending assistance
and benefits, without depending on the superficial data/statistics.
• Minimizing personal identity to prevent the facilitator’s own personal ideas and
agendas having an influence in sessions
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

Create Conditions to Enable People to Speak Out

At the beginning of a consultative process, the facilitators may allow participants to air their
grievances and encourage them to make statements and express ideas on their pressing
issues. Skillful facilitation of such a session will give a lot of emotional relief to participants.
For this purpose keep the agenda flexible.

Develop Trust with Partnership Attitude

The benefits of various projects do not always reach the needy citizens due to the lack of
close and constant dialogue with them from the planning through to the implementation
stage. As a result, supporting agencies lack confidence in LAs and citizens become frustrated
with the situation. If the objective is to ensure effective service delivery, the facilitators have
to develop a trust and partnership attitude to be close to the people.
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

Strengthen the Learning Process

In many projects, attempts are made to develop institutional capacity through a structured
learning process. It is therefore very useful to capture and share such lessons learnt at
different layers.

Understand Limitations
Facilitators require extraordinary commitment and a huge voluntary component in their
work. This is essential for success. However, voluntary work has its own limitations and one
should be mindful to what extent it can be sustained in the long run.
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

Improve Professionalism
While voluntarism is encouraged with high commitment, it is important for facilitators to
develop professionalism in their work. The institutionalization of participation and
participatory approaches within LAs forms a part of this professionalism. Facilitators should
understand that work relating to development projects couldn’t be carried out in the normal
institutional culture, where routine duties are performed restricted to the standard eight-
hour day.
Keep Interventions Free from Bias
Projects may be kept free from political bias, but it is important to obtain the blessings and
support of all political parties. Facilitators should, therefore, emphasize the involvement of
both government and opposition party leaders in the participatory community consultations.
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

Emphasize the LA/Community Partnership

Many development projects do not belong to the category of relief and rehabilitation
programmes. They are often partnerships between the LA and citizens. Therefore, it is
important to identify the tasks that cannot be accomplished without joint effort and
partnership between the LA and citizens.

Understand the Process of Change

It is important to understand the process of change, particularly planned interventions for
positive change. Learning and education should be included as essential dynamic elements of
the process of change.
THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR

Good Coordination is Essential

The mediation role of the LA is crucial. Equally important is to convert the LA into an effective
coordination unit.
Incorporate Village Plans with People
Participatory community consultations can be treated as an opportunity to initiate a process
for incorporating village plans and inviting resources from different sources. In this exercise, it
is also important to create an environment that is conducive by following a step-by-step
process to utilize existing capacities.
Final Outcomes
It is necessary to visualize final outcomes of your efforts in community consultations. One of
the points to be aware of is ensuring there is effective and sustainable delivery of services
ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATORY EVENT

A successful participatory event always produces

good results. In designing participatory events,
make careful preparations so that most or all of
the following success factors are met.
ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATORY EVENT

Key Elements
• Everyone attending the event is actually involved in the discussions and workshops.
• Previously ‘marginalized’ groups are adequately heard and involved in the event.
• Next-step activities are generated.
• There is effective management of group dynamics in a way that:
o Participants feel honoured and respected.
o Participants experience a safe and level playing field or atmosphere.
o Participants feel free to express themselves in a manner they are comfortable with.
o Discussions are focused on issues, not on personalities.
o Participants are not engaged in either attacking or defending ideas.
ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATORY EVENT

Key Elements
• There is a sense of accomplishment among the participants throughout, and especially at
the end of the activity.
• Participants experience a sense of shared ownership of the event output.
• Participants' time is maximized through proper pacing, adequate time allocation and
breaks.
• The event catalyzes individual commitment, responsibility and initiative.
• The event may be easily replicable at various levels in different areas.
ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPATORY EVENT

Critical Factors for a Successful Participatory Event

• Meets the group's purpose.
• Right stakeholders present (representative).
• Event and activity objectives are clear and agreed upon.
• Procedures are realistic and clearly understood and communicated.
• Adequate time (but no more) is allotted for each activity.
• Methods are appropriate for level of technical difficulty.
• Skills of facilitators.
• Adequate supplies and materials.
Benefits vs. Barriers of Participation
Benefits of public participation

•Improved governance, including increased democratic legitimacy for institutions because of

close links with citizens, improved reputations for public bodies, increased opportunities for
active citizenship, and greater accountability of public bodies because of more effective
information dissemination and better dialogue.

•Greater social cohesion etc, including bringing diverse and sometimes hostile communities
together, bringing ‘hard to reach’ and ‘disadvantaged’ groups into discussions, building
relationships within and between different communities and social groups (‘bonding’ and
‘bridging’ social capital), strengthening and creating new networks that enable different
interests to work together as a result of building more positive relationships based on a better
knowledge of each other, and increased equality of access to policy and decision-making
processes.
Benefits of public participation

•Improved quality of services, projects and programmes, including ensuring public service
investment is based more on people’s expressed needs, reducing management and maintenance
costs by reducing vandalism and misuse as a result of engendering a sense of ownership,
enabling faster and easier decisions (e.g. on new developments or protective designations) by
reducing conflict between different parties and increasing trust through better communications,
and enabling people to share in the responsibility for improving their own quality of life (e.g.
health and well-being, or the local environment).
Benefits of public participation

•Greater capacity building and learning, including raising awareness and increasing
understanding of public institutions and the way they work, enabling citizens to better access
the services they need, and to understand the boundaries and limitations of different public
bodies, building confidence and optimism among citizens who then go on to other civic
activities or learning, supporting the voluntary and community sectors by recognising their
vital role in building the capacity of community and specific interest groups (especially
disadvantaged and excluded groups), and increasing the skills among the staff running
participation and those taking part (especially interpersonal skills).
Costs of public participation

•Monetary costs, including staff time (paid and unpaid), staff expenses, external staff /
consultants, fees to participants, participants’ expenses, training for staff and participants,
administration, venue hire, other event costs (e.g. refreshments, equipment), newsletters,
leaflets, monitoring and evaluation fees.
•Non-monetary costs, including time contributed by participants, and skills needed for the
new approach (taking time from other work).
•Risks, including risks to reputation (from bad participatory practice), stress, uncertainty and
conflict.