Urban participatory planning
Practical Action
mainstream development theory and practice (The United Nations Centre for Human Settlement
(UNCHS) declaration (1976) in Vancouver, and the Earth Summit (1992) in Rio are among the
major world conventions that gave significant impetus to participatory planning approaches).
A number of participatory approaches have been developed in an effort to ‘standardize’ and
institutionalize participation in development practice. For example, Participatory Urban
Appraisal (PUA) methodologies; Rural Rapid Appraisal (RRA) techniques; Participatory Learning
Methods (PALM); Micro-planning; Planning for Real; ZOPP and UNCHS (Habitat) Participatory
Urban Decision Making; Community Action Planning (CAP) among others. In particular
Participatory Urban Appraisal (PUA) has been used in many urban settings to identify the needs
and priorities of communities, often in combination with Community Action Planning, in order to
develop a series of actionable ideas for the implementation of community development. At the
city level City Development Strategies (CDSs) have enabled city residents to participate in the
prioritisation of city development projects while participatory budgeting has enabled residents to
influence the planning and spending of municipal budgets, and at the national level new policy
models such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) aim to institutionalise participatory
processes.
However, in recent years there has been much criticism and debate over the concept of
participation. It has been argued by some scholars that since the adoption of the concept of
participation into mainstream development practice it has become co-opted and ‘modified,
sanitised, and depoliticised’ (Leal, P.A. 2010:95) as a tool to better serve the dominant neo-
liberal agenda in order to maintain rather than challenge the status quo and current inequities.
Many civil society organisations, wanting to remain neutral in their interactions, are reluctant to
get involved in local politics, however through their processes and interventions it would be
unavoidable not to have an effect on existing power structures and hierarchies. The tools that
have been developed often tend to address either sectoral or specific development issues in
specific countries, and many of the broader participatory methodologies, having originally been
developed in the North, and often also developed in rural environments may not be suitable for
addressing the complexity of urban life. Thus many existing approaches oversimplify the concept
of ‘communities’ and the political, social and cultural context in which they and the groups and
individuals that constitute them form and are formed by.
In response to the perceived lack
of engagement with the power
struggles and inequalities
associated with participation,
there has been a substantial
amount of debate on how
participation can reengage with
its transformative roots (see for
example Cook and Kothari 2001
followed by Hickey and Mohan
2004 for some of the
discussion). It is argued that a
development intervention should
not only aim to understand
existing power structures both
internal and external to the
‘community’ in which it is
working, but also aim to build
the capacity of those who are
marginalised to engage with
those in positions of power, as
Figure 2: Ladies from Gonda Nguono Self-help Group
collecting water from a shallow well, Manyatta A ward,
Kisumu, Kenya
Photo credit: Caroline Cage
well as to create secure and inclusive spaces where this can take place. The poor should not be
seen solely as participants in the design and implementation of development activities, but also
as partners and active agents of change within themselves. In this way participation may give the
opportunity for a longer-term, more meaningful involvement of marginalised members of that
society.
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