Module Survey Survey #2
DEVELOPMENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
FACILITATING PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT
SUMMER 2008
InstructoR
Claudia Liebler has been involved with international development for many years, with experience in 32 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. She has worked with professionals from a range of disciplines including peace building, education, health, community development, micro-enterprise, and agricultural extension. As the Project Director and Co-founder of the GEM Initiative, she was on the staff of Case Western Reserve's Weatherhead School of Management in the doctoral department of organizational behavior. GEM was a university-based program that for seven years provided capacity building for NGOs worldwide using Appreciative Inquiry and other assets based methodologies to promote individual, organizational, and community change.
Ms. Liebler’s work in capacity building includes strategies for building coordination and collaboration between organizations, government, bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies, and community groups. She facilities the mobilization of vibrant networks, assists organizations to create their futures and maximize their impact in the world, and helps communities of all kinds to discover their assets and build a common agenda among diverse stakeholders. She has created successful methodologies for developing high performance work teams, for conducting organization wide action training and real time strategic change interventions, and for building participation, collaboration, and commitment both within and between organizations.
Ms. Liebler has brought the theory and practice of positive change to peacebuilding and is exploring ways to engage the development community in conversation with the conflict transformation community so that both can benefit from a more integrated approach. In the same way, she has worked with some of the world’s largest relief organizations helping them to bridge relief efforts with longer term development strategies. She is involved with civil society issues at the grass-roots, national and global level. Currently she serves as Pact’s Director of Participatory Training and Facilitation.
MODULE OVERVIEW
Description:
Dharavi with more than a million inhabitants, many second generation residents, is one of the world’s largest slums. It lies on prime real estate property in the middle of India’s financial capital, Mumbai. The National Geographic describes Dharavi as “…unique among slums. A neighborhood smack in the heart of Mumbai, it retains the emotional and historical pull of a sub continental Harlem—a square-mile (three square kilometers) center of all things, geographically, psychologically, spiritually. Its location has also made it hot real estate in Mumbai, a city that epitomizes India's hopes of becoming an economic rival to China. Indeed, on a planet where half of humanity will soon live in cities, the forces at work in Dharavi serve as a window not only on the future of India's burgeoning cities, but on urban space everywhere”
Dharavi is a complicated place and its multiple stakeholders have different perspectives on the future. Through the National Slum Dwellers Association and NGOs like SPAR, residents have been working to be included in the development of plans for the area. On June 18, 2007 15,000 people marched peacefully to show their determination to have a voice in the future of their community.
Dharavi will be the context for the work in this module which will ask participants to step into the role of facilitator of participatory development. Working in teams participants will practice using some of the tools familiar to practitioners world wide. They will design intervention strategies using the tools and then actually implement their strategies in a setting that simulates Dharavi.
Topics will include:
Identity and its influence on assumptions and practice
Basic facilitation skills
Intervention strategies
Tools used to facilitate:
Participatory assessment/rapid community scan
Community wide dialogue
Visioning
Group decision making
Conflict mitigation
Purpose of the Module: Build the foundational skills necessary to work within a participatory development framework.
Outcomes (Competencies): At the end of this module participants will:
Appreciate how identity influences development practice
Use participatory methods/tools effectively
Understand the multiple factors impacting facilitation
Know how to select the best tool for the situation
Be able to assess own skills and develop next steps in professional development
Manage group dynamics
Develop a personal library of facilitation tools
RATIONALE
The UNDP Guidebook for Participation states that the notion of people’s participation is now widely recognized as a basic operational principle of development programs. This shift requires a new body of knowledge, set of skills and attitude or philosophy different from that of “expert.”
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS all by the target date of 2015 have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest citizens. Anyone contemplating a career in international development must be able to create the conditions in which individuals, groups, organizations, communities and nations can build their own capacities to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our world today. The strengthening of capacity is synonymous with the facilitation of change and at the heart of this transformation are skills associated with learning, training, and facilitation – the conscious use of self as a tool to design and lead participatory development efforts.
MODULE REQUIREMENTS
Course requirements include attending all class sessions, participating fully, doing the required readings, working as a team to design and facilitate one session, and producing the module deliverables at the end of the week.
Deliverables (for inclusion in your individual Zoho Notebook):
- An analysis of how identity influences approaches to development (individual assignment using guided questions that will be shared in the module)
- An intervention description that answers the eight questions contained on page 2 of the team assignment instructions. This team-generated product should be included in your individual notebook along with some representative artifacts used in your presentation (e.g., a video, images of flip charts, team notes)
- Reflections, reactions and readjustments that respond to Zoho Poll results and comments on your team's presentation (to be presented as narrative in your notebook)
PRE-MODULE REQUIRED READINGS AND PREPARATION
Bid to Develop Indian Slums Draws Opposition, National Public Radio, Morning Edition, May 9, 2007. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10089935
View video of 2007 march by Dharavi residents and an open letter from Jockin Arputham, National Slum Dwellers Association. http://www.iied.org/HS/india/dharavi.html
Explore this National Geographic site on Dharavi including the article, video, interactive map and forum. http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0705/feature3/index.html
Click on the “The Current: Mumbai” under CBC Radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) near the bottom of the page to hear a radio documentary by Avril Benoit. http://www.cbc.ca/correspondent/060507.html
Explore the web site of SPARC including infrastructure projects, R&R and documentation. http://www.sparcindia.org/
OTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
Community Tool Box: Participatory Approaches to Planning Community Interventions. http://ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents
Castelloe, Watson, and White. 2002. Participatory Change: An Integrative Approach to Community Practice, Journal of Community Practice,10(4), 7-32. www.cpcwnc.org/Resources/Participatory%20Change%20Article.pdf
Kaner, Sam. 1996. Facilitators’ Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. New Society Publishers.
Kretzmann, John P. and John L. McKnight. 1993. Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. Evanston, Ill: Institute for Policy Research. Introduction to the book is at http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/publications/community/introd-building.html.
Real Lavergne and John Saxby, Capacity for Development: Visions and Implications” by Capacity Development Occasional Series, No.3. Quebec: Canadian International Development agency. This paper can be found at http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC13610.htm
Liebler, Claudia. 1997. “Getting Comfortable with Appreciative Inquiry.” Global Social Innovations 1:2, pp. 30-40. http://ai.cwru.edu/gem/getting.html.
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Carlos Lopes and Khalid Malik, Eds. Capacity for Development: New Solutions to Old Problems. , United Nations Development Programme. This paper can be downloaded at http--www.capacity.undp.org-
Tools for Development: A Handbook for those engaged in Development Activity, Version 15, September 2002, Performance and Effectiveness Department, Department of International Development (DFID). This handbook can be found at www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs
Weisbord, Marvin R. and Sandra Janoff. 1995. Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations & Communities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
