Increasing Project Impact through Participatory Approaches

1. Increasing Project Impact through Participatory Approaches Working Group 1

2. Plan of Presentation • What do we understand by participation in the context of IFAD project concepts • Participation: Why Bother? Reasons why we cannot be non-participatory • Minimum Requirements • Participation by whom, for whom and when • Participation and the IFAD project cycle • Resource Implications • Institutional Implications

3. What do we understand by participation, in the context of IFAD project/country programme? • is a political act • it gets voices heard • it changes -power relationships • starts with consultation, leads to negotiating problems, solutions, approaches and moves to decision-making and action • needs to involve all (even those opposing!) stakeholders

4. Participation: Why bother? • To ensure design reflects the real priorities of beneficiaries • To ensure feasibility from people’s viewpoint • To ensure the relevance of interventions • To ensure sustainability beyond the project period • To ensure the project is reaching and listening to the voices of the people it targets • Increase ownership and therefore motivation • Makes project accountable to beneficiaries • Generates learning/power to facilitate advocacy at the top (partnerships) and at the bottom (by demanding political entitlement) • Provides early warning on problems

5. Reasons why we cannot ignore participation of stakeholders? • Complexity of issues: problems/statistics/ approaches/impact: all need to be negotiated agreements • Even minor stakeholders can seriously affect projects/impacts • Human right of participating in actions that affect people and their livelihoods

6. Minimum Requirements/Issues • Participation without legitimate organisation difficult • Existing organisations can be involved provided that the organisations represent stakeholders • Affording participation in terms of time and lost earnings of beneficiaries • Enabling participation of weaker groups through access/facilitation/project support

7. Participation and IFAD Project Cycle SUSTAINABILITY Participatory Instrument for Change COMPLETION MID-TERM R/E IMPLEMENTATION ***** Build capacity for participatory adjustment of design and implementation APWBs START-UP Involve stakeholders/PRA etc. APPROVAL Flexible Design*** APPRAISAL Iterative Process ___________________________ FORMULATION INCEPTION Should not Pre-commit Design COSOP

8. Resource Implications • Yes, it costs more in terms of money and time • Participation needs to be considered as an INVESMENT rather than a cost • Costs can be dramatically reduced by building capacity of project staff and other stakeholders (instead of only relying on international) -- cascade training

9. Institutional Implications • Participation is a mind-set/attitude -- can we really train people to be participatory? • Agencies promoting participation need to be participatory themselves -- Walk the talk!! Need for commitment on the part of donors • Be prepared for the consequences of participation: uncertainty, politicization, loss of “control”, etc. • IFAD needs to orient and promote participation amongst governments/partners through advocacy, consultation and leverage • IFAD depends on consultants. Need to evolve long-term relationships, and help consultants to evolve towards participation through orientation/training and periodic consultation

10. Participatory Implementation supported by: Participatory Impact Monitoring Participatory Impact Assessment Reality Check Workshops Participatory Evaluation IFAD Project Cycle: An Iterative Process Sustainability Completion Instruments for Change Mid-Term R/E Supervision Monitoring and Evaluation AWP&Bs Flexible Design based on: PRAs Poverty assessments Livelihood analyses Stakeholder workshops Start-up Build capacity Approval Negotiations Appraisal Formulation Inception Stakeholder workshop Poverty assessments COSOP