Can communities accustomed to welfare-oriented delivery programmes learn to identify needs and develop their own neighbourhood development projects? Can even the most marginalised groups become involved? Will the agendas of professionals always crowd out community voices when it comes to implementing projects?

A paper from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) describes an initiative to encourage community-directed development projects in low-income neighbourhoods in a poor municipality of Buenos Aires. With a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank and led by the national government, the US$60 million Programme of Support to Vulnerable Groups (PAGV) worked with local people and organisations to develop projects for marginalised groups. These were co-ordinated by IIED-AL (the Argentine partner organisation) in two municipalities.

The participatory planning process began with fora to identify vulnerable groups and their problems. These were followed by workshops to suggest responses to problems identified and sessions which brought people and officials together to design neighbourhood schemes and the institutional structures needed to implement and manage them. The projects which emerged met the needs of such groups as older people, youth, people with disabilities and women-headed households.

The neighbourhoods chosen for the initiative had been developed informally through the individual and collective efforts of the settlers. Accustomed to years of top-down interventions (often involving food distributions), many poor residents were sceptical that PAGV would bring any changes. Residents were uncertain about how to start define their needs and proposing solutions by themselves.

Civil society organisations working in the area, with the exception of religious organisations, depend on volunteer workers and several are largely sustained by their leader. Half of the organisations don’t have a headquarters. They report being held back by the lack of participation of community residents, poor accounting, a weak definition of the organisation’s functions and volunteers’ lack of formal education or training in participatory techniques.

The paper notes that:

• It was hard to get members of the vulnerable groups to participate or to assess the feasibility and sustainability of suggested projects.
• It was particularly difficult to prevent the intrusion of a professionally driven agenda with regard to programmes for disabled people and senior citizens.
• Women and youth groups were better able to develop their ideas into practical proposals.

Urban social programmes aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion can improve their chances of success by:

• promoting a network of civil society organisations to achieve a more horizontal relationship with local government
• appreciating that getting the most marginalised to participate in planning processes can be difficult unless they can identify immediate benefits
• being aware that setting rigorous legal registration procedures for NGOs (in order to allow them to implement state or multilateral bank sponsored projects) can exclude the marginalised civil society organisations who are supposed to be beneficiaries
• understanding that projects will not succeed without the participation of both communities and local government
• prioritising the investigation of how vulnerable residents will be involved in project implementation.

Source(s):
‘Poverty reduction in action: participatory planning in San Fernando, Buenos Aires, Argentina’ by R. Schusterman, F. Almansi, A. Hardoy, C. Monti and G. Urquiza, Working Paper 6 on Poverty Reduction in Urban Areas, Human Settlements Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development, May 2002 Full document.

Funded by: DFID (IUDD) + Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC)

id21 Research Highlight: 13 November, 2002

Further Information:
Instituto Internacional de Medio Ambiente y desarrollo-IIED-America Latina
Av. Gral. Paz 1180
(1429) Buenos Aires
Argentina

Tel: +54 (1) 4703 5014 / 47032894
Fax: +54 (1) 4701 2805

Instituto Internacional de Medio Ambiente y desarrollo-IIED-America Latina

Human Settlements Programme
International Institute for Environment and Development
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H ODD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7388 2117
Fax: +44 (0)20 7388 2826

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK

Other related links:
'Rethinking poverty assessment: the pros and cons of participatory methods'

'Including the older poor: challenging assumptions and changing policies on ageing'

'Listen to kids! Involving young people in improving urban environments'

'Listening to the poor'

'Nothing about us, without us': including disabled people in poverty reduction work

'Demand responsive urban planning: neighbourhood participation in infrastructure improvement'

Urban Governance Partnerships and Poverty provides a series of theme papers