Listening to the poor

How can poor people living in peri-urban areas participate in planning for their own communities? In India, government departments often make decisions for villagers with minimal consultation. The needs of poor people are thus rarely met in development initiatives.

Research led by the University of Wales, Bangor (with other partners in the UK and India), sought better ways of engaging poor people in the twin city of Hubli-Dharwad in north Karnataka, India, in developing their own plans of action to improve the management of natural resources. In rural India, the poorest people are often those with no land or only small parcels of land. It can be more difficult to locate 'the poor' in the peri-urban interface as the landless often diversify their livelihood strategies through, for example, buffalo milk production, or manual work in the city or working in factories. However, the peri-urban poor do face many challenges: if illiterate, it can be hard to get a job in a factory; it may be deemed culturally inappropriate for women to work; and families may have a high number of dependants due to illness.

In the project, peri-urban inhabitants were able to express their views. For most, this was the first time they had ever been consulted, let alone asked to participate in the planning process. To identify which natural resource management issues matter most, village meetings were held, followed by a workshop, in which participants from each village were brought together to hear what others in similar circumstances had to say. Planning for pilot projects took place in self-help groups.

Government departments were included in the process from the start to ensure a greater chance of sustained success beyond the life of the project. Key government officials such as the Chief Executive Officer of Dharwad District Council and the Director of Karnataka State Watershed Development Department realised the advantages of the participatory approach, and this contributed enormously to the rapid progress of the project.

So what issues mattered most to the peri-urban poor?

• improving dairy activities despite constraints in finding sufficient fodder
• rehabilitating micro-watersheds and de-silting irrigation tanks
• solving problems caused by the use of sewage polluted waste water for irrigating vegetables
• finding alternative employment for those who depend on natural resources due to environmental degradation or loss of access to these resources.

What has been learnt from this process?

• More effort is needed to engage with the peri-urban poor who are often hard to find, and whose livelihood strategies are diverse.
• Where villagers have no experience of participatory project development, patience is needed to build their confidence to express their concerns and propose solutions.
• Community development, involving the use of self-help groups, is an essential first step.
• Villagers have no difficulty in diagnosing problems and proposing solutions, as well as envisaging how their lives might change as a consequence of the project.
• Government officials may be initially sceptical about participatory approaches and hesitant to work with poor or illiterate people and women; but in India, they are gradually changing their views.

Rob Brook
School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences
University of Wales
Bangor
Gwynedd LL57 3SG
UK

T +44 (0) 1248 382517

r.m.brook@bangor.ac.uk

Sageetha Puroshotaman
Best Practices Foundation
1 Palmgrove Road
Victoria Layout
Bangalore 560047
India

T +91 80 530 1861

bpfound@vsnl.com

See also
'Participatory Action Planning Process in the Peri-Urban Interface: the Twin City Experience of Hubli-Dharwad, India', prepared for the Conference 'Rural-Urban Encounters: Managing the Environment of the Peri-Urban Interface', DPU, UCL, 9-10 November 2001, by M. Halkatti and S. Puroshotaman
'Whose Voice? Participatory Research and Policy Change'. Editors: Jeremy Holland and James Blackburn. Intermediate Technology Publications, London, 1998

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