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Sustainable development involves trade-offs between economic, social and ecological objectives. Such trade-offs cannot be determined by ‘scientific’ means alone, no matter how multi-disciplinary. They are value judgements, and therefore ‘people-centered’ approaches to sustainable development strategies are needed. Participation of stakeholder groups is critical for decision-making, and for all tasks of the strategy cycle, taking different forms for each task. The result will be a more realistic strategy, with a broader base of knowledge, understanding and commitment from the groups involved, and with better links to promising local initiatives.

The challenge of participation is considerable: ‘horizontal’ participation across sectors and geographic regions has to be complemented by ‘vertical’ participation from national to local levels. Although existing structures and methods for participation are usually weak, it is best to begin by using them. Introducing new elements – participatory inquiry, communications/information and education campaigns, round tables and special committees – is relatively easy and can have great impact. NGOs and local governments can help to bring this about. It is a mistake to think that
participation is entirely a non-government affair: ultimately, governments need to find appropriate roles as facilitators in participation, and hence to continually increase the effectiveness of strategies.

People involved in strategies for sustainability commonly say that what is important is not the strategy document itself, which becomes outdated almost as soon as it is published, but the strategy’s beneficial products in terms of:

In other words, successful strategies are participatory. Conversely, ‘failed’ strategies – those that appear to be going nowhere, even though the documentation may look good – are frequently characterized by a lack of participation.

Few strategies, however, have been either entirely participatory or completely non-participatory. Most strategies, to get close to their declared objectives, have had to incorporate existing participation structures and methodologies, improve them or even create new ones.

Agenda 21 echoes these observations. Not only does it call for NSDSs as the principal vehicles for addressing Agenda 21 at national level, but it also recommends that they be developed ‘with the widest possible participation’. How can this be done? So far, beyond general observations, there has been little analysis of how participation has taken place in previous strategies, the impacts of this, and the constraints to improvement. There are many challenges; notably, how to focus efforts given the potentially limitless scope of participation and the down-to-earth realities of limited resources and time; and how to build participation into strategies born of bureaucratic or donor initiatives, which themselves are not always conducive to participation.

Sustainable development can be thought of as the balanced achievement of economic, environmental and social goals. This involves the integration of these goals where possible, and making trade-offs among them where necessary. In such a balancing act, however, specific local needs and circumstances must be acknowledged – there is no single mix of goals that is right for every group in every country. Neither is the right mix static: it will evolve over time. A further balancing act is needed to
determine the trade-offs between the current generation and the next. Uncertainties in the environmental system (such as climate change), in the economic system (such as commodity price changes) and in the social system (such as changing numbers of people and their values) need to be accommodated.

One might assume that a judicious mix of economic, environmental and social sciences can arrive at the right balance between goals, and between generations. In practice, however, this is shown not to be the case. A ‘science-based’ approach such as this should be complemented by a more ‘people-centred’ approach. This is because:

Clearly a strategy cannot be planned and implemented by government alone. All actors need to be motivated to deliver a sustainable future. In trade-offs, some actors will be ‘losers’ and others will be ‘winners’.

Debate, consensus-building, commitment and action is essential – by both ‘winners’and ‘losers’, and by those who are central to power as well as those who have been marginalized in the past. This is particularly so in the context of a strategy. All parties need to feel some ownership and commitment to the process. A range of groups will be required to act, often jointly, in order for the strategy to be implemented; but each group must feel the actions meet their individual, as well as collective, goals. This is difficult to achieve. A key element is to seek a mandate from affected groups before the strategy policies are defined.

A common response by governments to the challenges of a comprehensive national strategy has been to ‘go it alone’, often under pressure from development banks. They have viewed the process as a multi-disciplinary, scientific and governmental planning exercise (perhaps involving the academic community). There is a clear distinction between participatory and multi-disiplinary methods, yet these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Land-use planning and Geographic Information Systems are usually low in participation and higher in multi-disciplinary methods; whereas participatory rural appraisal is very high in participation and not very multi-disciplinary (Carley 1994).

To be effective, national strategies need to be both highly participatory and highly multi-disciplinary. The challenge is to accomplish this in an efficient manner, establishing a balance that best reflects society’s varied perspectives and needs.

It is helpful to consider participation in strategies as a sharing by groups of people in all the tasks ultimately affecting them (information gathering, analysis, decision-making, implementation and capacity-building, and monitoring and evaluation).

Some approaches to participation, in the process of defining the balance among economic, social and environmental goals, and between the present and the future, marginalize affected groups or limit their stake. Box 8 lists trends associated with the progression from activities with lower levels of participation to those with higher participation.

The time taken by participatory work tends to be longer than with normal planning/project cycles, at least in the first year or so. This is because groups need to form and consult with their constituencies, and debate issues and objectives in a more lengthy manner than with strategies prepared by ‘professionals’ alone.

The benefits of participation tend to differ with the different tasks, and iterations, of the strategy cycle. They may be summarized by strategy task, as follows:

Generally, the more participants in a strategy, the higher are the costs of participation. These costs are a function of:

Time requirements. The time commitment to participation will depend on the strategy component and the maturity of the strategy process (ie, how many turns of the cycle have been completed). The planning or policy formulation component has taken three to six months for some World Bank NEAPs with minimal participation. Conversely, it has taken from 18 months to four years to set up and undertake the more comprehensive participation exercises associated with NCSs and Green Plans (for example, Botswana, Nepal, Canada, and Pakistan) or local strategies (for example, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme [AKRSP], India and Pakistan). We should expect a strategy to progress in a manner, and over a time, that is set by the main participation processes used; consensus-building will usually take the longest. Planning occurs regularly in a strategy process; implementation and monitoring are ongoing. Participation, therefore, is continuous, changing in form, function and breadth throughout the strategy cycle.

Specialist skill requirements. Skills in participatory inquiry, communications, education and media activities are all essential in order to establish the right links and ensure a high quality of communication and participation. Strategies have involved journalists (Nepal), graphic designers and environmental educationalists (Pakistan, Zambia), and participatory rural appraisal staff (AKRSP) to facilitate the communication flow. Each exercise tends to take a specific slant: we do not yet know of a national-level exercise that has consistently employed a broad range of communication skills.

Communications requirements. Participation exercises require the means for different groups to meet at various levels in the field (transport, meeting rooms and equipment), and to communicate through the medium appropriate to the groups in question (telecommunications, mass media, traditional media, etc). The role of public information, education and communications (IEC) in strategies is considered in the final section of this chapter.

Management requirements of the participation process. The management of all participatory components is complex, and requires professionals with advanced administration skills and those who know how to apply the various skills and methodologies to the appropriate participation structures available in the country. However, process management should not amount to orchestration; there is a need for skilled facilitation. The outcome of participatory activities will be only as socially and politically diverse as the openness of the facilitators permits.

Initial participation exercises in strategies tend to be relatively expensive; the costs of making contact, establishing mechanisms, etc, can be high. Many ‘failed’ participation exercises are the result of early abandonment (within the first year or two) as patience with the necessarily slow and sometimes experimental start to participation wears thin in the face of donor or governmental pressures for a ‘product’.

Experience with participation exercises in major local strategies shows that the costs can go down considerably with each iteration; as the scope, purpose and methodologies for participation of each group in each strategy task become clearer and better focused in the strategy work plan.

A balance must be struck between involving as wide a range of participants as possible to forge a broad-based and durable consensus without overloading the facilitating and managerial capacities of the animators and leaders of the strategy. The more well-developed and representative the existing participation mechanisms, the more cost-effective they are likely to be. If managerial capacities are weak and participatory mechanisms are poor, the number of participants can be limited at first; but
participation should be increased with the development and reiteration of strategy tasks.

The more immediate risks of a participatory approach, as opposed to a top-down approach, are:

These risks can be minimized through good planning for participation, good management of the participation process and through maintaining independence from party politics. Adequate time, and a determination not to rush into producing a document or into taking precipitous actions, are required.

The use of participatory approaches should not be a one-off event, but be part of a process in which incremental learning is one step in a longer-term commitment to adaptive planning and sustainable development. Success will come only with the adoption of new principles and practices for joint learning and action. Most important, effective participatory work requires shifts in attitudes and behaviour in professionals, and shifts in institutional settings. Participatory methodologies alone are not enough to
ensure significant institutional change. The strategy process should not only adopt the best of existing participation approaches, but itself be a vehicle for introducing the new values and approaches required for sustainable development.

The strategy should build on the structures and methodologies available for participation in the country or locality.

Examples of existing systems and institutions on which to build include the planning system, the political system, traditional structures (for example, village-based systems) religious systems, the education system, the agricultural extension system, the arts/theatre and the media.

In the absence or weakness of existing participatory structures, informal or one-off structures can be put together specially for the strategy process; for example, special committees and round tables – constituted for the strategy – to discuss specific common or cross-sectoral issues. This is a very common approach, at least for the first iteration of a strategy.

Methodologies which a strategy can utilise include participatory inquiry, resource surveys, ‘Green’ audits, consensus-building, planning methods, EIA negotiation, voluntary agreements, joint management, traditional methods (for example, of conflict resolution), media techniques (for example, ‘phone-ins’) and communications and information techniques.

All of these methods need to become well-known and routinely used. Special efforts should be made to build capacity in them even before a strategy begins. Experience in major local strategies has shown that the early development of participatory inquiry has been particularly critical. This explains why there are so many variants of participatory inquiry established under different names for local circumstances (see Box 9).

One of the aims of participation is to develop a strategy with a broad base of support. This requires building consensus among participants on objectives, principles, issues, priorities, policies and actions. In many strategy processes, decisions by the steering committee and other committees are also made by consensus, although consensus is not always clearly defined. Consensus means general agreement: a condition in which all participants can live with the result, although not all (and maybe none) of them may embrace it with great enthusiasm. Consensus does not mean wholehearted agreement or unanimity: differing views, values, and perspectives are a fact of life. Nor does consensus mean majority agreement, whereby minority concerns are effectively excluded.

Box 9: Participatory inquiry

In recent years, there has been a blossoming of participatory approaches for research, extension, planning and monitoring. Some focus on problem diagnosis; others are more oriented to community empowerment. Some participatory approaches in rural areas concentrate on facilitating on-farm or farmer-led research. Other approaches are designed to get professionals in the field listening to farmers. Some have been developed in the health context; some for watershed management; and some for food security assessment. Some have been developed in government extension institutions and others in NGOs. This diversity of names, applications and ‘owners’ is a sign of strength. It implies that each variant is to some extent dependent on location-specific contexts and problems.

These new approaches and methods imply downwards shifts of initiative, responsibility and action; especially to farmers and rural people themselves. Earlier investigations, where researchers collected data and took it away for processing, are superseded by more investigation and analysis by local people, who share their knowledge and insights with outsiders. Methods like participatory mapping, analysis of aerial photographs, matrix scoring and ranking, flow and link diagramming, seasonal analysis, and trend diagramming are not just means for farmers to inform outsiders, but methods for farmers’ own analysis.

Even though there is great difference between these approaches, a series of common principles underpin most of them:

A defined methodology and systematic learning process: in each case this focuses on cumulative learning.
Multiple perspectives: the objective is to seek diversity, rather than characterise complexity in terms of average values.
Group inquiry process: this implies three types of mix, namely multi-disciplinary; multi-sectoral; and mixes of outsiders (professionals) and insiders (local people).
Context-specific: the methodology is flexible enough to be adapted and changed to suit each new set of conditions and actors.
Facilitating experts: the role of the ‘expert’ is best thought of as helping the people in their situation carry out their own study.
Leading to action: the inquiry process leads to debate about change, and debate changes the perceptions of the actors and their readiness to contemplate action.

Action is agreed, and implementable changes will therefore represent an accommodation between the different conflicting views.

Participatory inquiry is the methodology that overarches these approaches and their methods. In the strategy process, inquiry occurs during appraisal, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. It is also used in the context of research, extension and education. The techniques of participatory inquiry cover:

Group and team dynamics Team contracts Team reviews and discussions Interview checklists Rapid report writing Energizers Role reversals/work-sharing Villager and shared presentations Process notes and personal diarie.	Interviewing and Dialogue Semi-structured interviewing Direct observation Focus groups Key informants Ethno-histories and biographies Local stories, portraits and case studies.
Sampling Transect walks Wealth ranking and well-being analysis Social maps Interview maps	Visualization and Diagramming Mapping and modelling Mobility maps Seasonal calendars Daily routines, activity profiles Historical profiles Trend analyses and time lines Matrix scoring Preference or pairwise ranking Venn diagrams Network diagrams Flow diagrams Pie diagrams

Methods which contribute to participatory inquiry include participatory rural appraisal, participatory action research, Diagnostico Rural Rapido, Farmer Participatory Research and Groupe de recherche et d’appui pour l’auto-promotion paysanne. Source: Pretty (1993).

When a strategy is implemented by several entities, the policy and plan are negotiated and developed collaboratively by them all. For such a process to work, all participants must have a roughly equal incentive to reach agreement and work together. Consensus then becomes a particularly valuable basis of agreement, because no participant can be outvoted. All participants are obliged to do their best to accommodate each others’ interests – or to compromise – to reach agreement where possible, and to identify remaining contentious issues to be resolved later.

Either the mandating authority or the steering committee should produce guidelines on what to do when consensus cannot be reached. Both consensus views and dissenting views should be recorded. Where issues are too contentious, or effectively non-negotiable (at least for the time being), it will be necessary to state this clearly and to agree when and how an issue may be revisited. There are then many ways of proceeding. For example, work may not proceed further than policy options; thereafter, the highest authority, such as cabinet, may decide how to proceed. In British Columbia, Canada, where a provincial land-use strategy is being negotiated by a large number of interests, decisions revert to government when consensus cannot be reached on issues.

Consensus is not necessary at all stages of the strategy. Indeed, given the value-laden and uncertain nature of many of the issues and the enormous interests at stake, strong and persistent disagreements are likely. Fundamental differences of value are probably immune to consensus. An exploration and understanding of the diversity of concerns and opinions is very important; and wide participation in the strategy process provides a continuing vehicle for this. Consensus is required (or is desirable) on the objectives and principles of the strategy, on priority issues, and on the best policy responses to priority issues. The process should aim for such consensus. Where it cannot beachieved, future iterations of the strategy should tackle the issues again.

The aim of negotiation is to tackle the trade-offs inherent in sustainable development in order to reach compromise in policy-making or setting responsibilities and plan objectives. It is important at the overall strategy level, and especially in setting decentralized targets. Agreed objectives and targets have a better chance of being implemented than those which are imposed. The processes of negotiation and consensus-building should continue throughout the strategy cycle, so that the strategy can adapt towards continuous improvement. The Netherlands has emphasized negotiation processes for target-setting (Box 10), while UK recycling targets, German carbon dioxide targets, and European Community (EC) sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide targets were set without negotiation. Although the latter targets made a powerful political impact, they have not been met in practice

Box 10: Participation in some national strategies

Canada’s Green Plan is an example of a government-led consultative process. The plan, an environmental strategy for the federal government, was prepared through the government’s budget planning process. It used the existing committee structure, from the Cabinet Committee on the Environment down through committees of deputy and assistant deputy ministers to a management team within the Department of the Environment. A ‘multi-stakeholder’ advisory committee was set up for the elaborate consultation process, which involved a great many interests: government; business; industry; the environment, youth and indigenous peoples; NGOs; and academics.

A background paper on the plan was released for public consultation, and its contents were substantially revised in light of the consultation; 17 meetings were held with interest group representatives; 41 open public meetings were held; and there was a two-day meeting to consolidate views. Thousands of citizens attended information sessions across the country and contributed suggestions through questionnaires and written submissions. The prescriptions of Canada’s Green Plan include: personnel exchanges between NGOs and government; increased support to the Canada Environmental Network; setting up other round tables and advisory councils (on youth and information) (Hill 1993).

The Netherlands’ National Environmental Policy Plan is a government-led participatory strategy. It integrates the national land use plan, national transport plan and national energy plan with national planning for agriculture and industry. Such integration has been made possible by multi-disciplinary and participatory approaches. NEPP is intended to relate national policy to local targets. The Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment works with provincial and municipal government and other groups in the NEPP.

Participation has occurred, to varying degrees, in information generation and advice, decision-making and implementation. It is still being developed by government agencies and nine target groups: agricultural producers; the transport sector; chemical manufacturers; gas and electricity suppliers; the construction industry; consumers and retailers; the environmental protection industry; research and educational establishments; and environmental organizations, trade unions and voluntary bodies. Each group is led by a steering committee, consisting of representatives of government and of the target group. Local targets are set by local officials based on the national plan.

Provinces are obliged to set targets; municipalities have the incentive of additional central government funding if they also do so. With industry, NEPP has emphasized voluntary agreements or covenants to secure agreements with government on environmental objectives and targets. Covenants are negotiated with trades associations, and local variations are allowed for branch members. Ministry staff accept that the price to be paid for a high degree of local participation and motivation will be a certain loss of control over the direction and actions of the NEPP. The ministry has negotiated action plans with all target groups in the NEPP (Hill 1993).

A Platform for Sustainable Development was also established in the Netherlands in 1993 as a forum for agenda-setting and consultation. Members are drawn from many social groups. Debate will be stimulated by campaigns targeted at politicians and the general public; the effectiveness of this presupposes a high degree of participation al-ready existing in the Netherlands something that is borne out by recent experience.

Nicaragua’s National Conservation Strategy involved participation based on the local government structure. Workshops were organized in each of the country’s 143 municipalities to make a participatory diagnosis of problems and needs. Short documents summarized the results and were submitted to a second round of workshops again in every municipality to decide on proposed actions. Many activities were organized, with groups such as artists, teachers, youth, and political parties, to ensure that a broad range of groups could participate. This helped establish strong links between the strategy and communities and institutions. It also contributed to the national dialogue between antagonists in the recent civil war, and launched locally-driven efforts to solve problems in many parts of Nicaragua.

Nepal’s NCS is one of the longest-lived national strategies in Asia, in terms of both participation and implementation. The strategy was closely tied to the National Planning Commission but run as a long-term project. It was decided that the strategy should not initially get too involved in institutional struggles. Key to strategy implementation is a multi-disciplinary, 80-member Environmental Core Group involved in different sectors, although largely from government. From this multi-disciplinary approach sprang a number of participatory exercises in environmental assessment and village planning with villagers and the private sector. User groups were seen as appro-priate participants for strategy implementation, as they took a less compartmentalized view than government departments. Hence, for implementation, emphasis was placed on developing the policy context and specific tools to encourage participation of government departments, the private sector and villagers in carrying out EIAs, land use and village plans, for example. This approach of “showing the way by doing” makes the case for institutional change more convincing.

‘Now is the right time to act. But the government acting by itself is insufficient. Government policies that are not owned by the people will not sustain themselves as governments change.’
Gary Lawrence, Sustainable Seattle Initiative

Governments can help provide the right conditions for participation. Initially, however, they are rarely capable of efficiently conducting the necessary participation themselves. Usually, certain changes are desirable to improve participation with successive iterations of the strategy cycle. Governments need to offer conditions conducive to increasing participation. NGOs and local authorities can then take the lead in participation, learn from it, and build their capacity. Governments should build structures and an empowering policy environment to actively support participation; indeed, government itself may conduct certain participation tasks where appropriate and efficient.

Governments can be highly efficient at running certain strategy tasks with participation – since they can apply many government institutions to the task and can realize economies of scale. Hence, while NGOs may initially play a strong role in acting as catalysts to a new institutional setting with greater participation, this role may become less necessary over time. It is a mistake to think of participation as exclusively an NGO preserve.

A national strategy must involve participation of the major ‘horizontal’ sectors of the national government, as well as the major ‘vertical’ divisions, including all the provinces/states and samples of each of the different types of lower level government. Institutional participation of government is therefore important, so that the strategy consensus reflects the views and needs of many government organizations. Also important is the participation of key individuals in government – the kinds of people who can cross barriers and engender vision and change.

The strategy should be able to survive changes in government, and so government participation should be structured accordingly; ie, not overly-dependent on political patronage. Parliamentary and other political processes might be used to ensure cross-party support. The strategies of Victoria (Australia), the Philippines, Nepal and Pakistan are among those that have successfully survived changes in government. In most such cases, the strategy:

Box 11: An important role for local government

In the UK, local authorities are coordinating some of the most innovative sustainable development initiatives in the country. An early local authority environmental audit in the UK. The Green Audit of the county of Lancashire formed a basis for subsequent participation. It acted as a scene-setter to help begin discussion, as opposed to starting with potentially confrontational dialogue. This led to the participatory Lancashire Environment Forum, a multi-interest group that used the Green Audit to develop the local Agenda 21. The recommendations of this are based on consensus. However, the for-um recognizes that consensus is not immediately possible on everything; as well as defining common positions, the forum also clarifies areas upon which there is not yet agreement part of the process of setting out the evolving agenda.

In the city of Leicester, there is a strong emphasis on participatory monitoring, to complete the strategy cycle and keep it turning. Public opinion is considered essential for keeping the pressure on; for example, opinion surveys on whether Leicester is getting cleaner are used as a principal basis for the participatory approach.

Usually there are several forms of participatory structures available within the government: the planning systems (town and rural planning tends to have more participatory structures than economic planning, but even so are essentially top-down); the decentralized administrative system; and the education system. These systems have all been used in strategies. Often, however, special committees and round tables have to be set up to increase ‘horizontal’ participation across interest groups and sectors; not only to ensure that government participation is broad enough, but also to be able to bring in non-governmental inputs. Existing institutional systems are weakest in facilitating these cross-sectoral forms of participation on a continuing basis.

As Box 11 illustrates, local government can play a key role in implementing strategies. The degree of involvement of local government varies, however, and depends on:

One way of involving local governments in the early stages of a national strategy is through an association of local governments. This is also an appropriate procedure if resources are limited.

‘A key element in the success of the follow-up to Rio is NGO involvement. NGOs have been able to bring in new ideas which would otherwise be kept out.’
Nitin Desai, CSD

Agenda 21 clearly states that non-governmental groups have substantial roles to play in sustainable development. It emphasises that pluralistic civil society, comprising civic groups working alongside government and the private sector, is critical to sustainable development. Non-governmental groups, where truly representative, can be effective in organizing the many niches of civil society; where government recognizes and supports this role financially, technically and legally, the prospects for sustainable development are good.

Until recently, however, governments have tended to dominate strategy processes, perhaps bringing in non-governmental inputs in information collection, in some field implementation and in communication and education processes. For strategies where policy frameworks were prepared with little non-governmental inputs, the value of such involvement has recently been realized, and actively sought in implementation and future iterations of the cycle.

When involving non-governmental interest groups – NGOs, community groups, the private sector, etc – care has to be taken to ensure the representativeness and accountability of these groups. This is particularly the case in making the key decisions of the strategy.

Representativeness: How representative of the interest is the participating group? An apparently single interest may in fact consist of several competing interests. The fishing sector, for example, may be divided into industrial fishing, artisanal fishing, and recreational fishing, and may be further divided by catch or gear (for example, crab fishing, shrimp fishing, trawling, purse seining). To provide a fair reflection of the fishing sector, representation should come from all these interests. If complete representation of a sector is not possible (and it seldom is), participants in the strategy should be aware of those interests not being reflected and how their concerns differ from those of the ‘representative’ group.

Accountability: How accountable are the individuals to their interest group? For example, the terms of reference of the Steering Committee and other committees and working groups should state whether members are there in their personal capacity or as representatives of a particular group. In the latter case, there must be a mechanism by which the representative is accountable to the group, reports to it, and receives instructions from it. This is not difficult to achieve when the interest group is represented by an association with democratic procedures, such as a national chamber of commerce, an association of municipalities, or a professional association. It is more difficult when a coalition or temporary association has to be put together expressly to participate in the strategy.

Fairness: Are all interest groups equally well-equipped to participate, in terms of time, money, skills and access to information? National and provincial government officials are paid to participate and usually have ready access to information. Most large corporations have the resources needed to attend meetings, analyze papers, and collect data. Many small businesses, community groups and environmental and social interest groups do not have these resources. To be on an equal footing with wealthier and more powerful participants, they need financial and sometimes technical support to attend meetings and prepare informed positions. Some governments have introduced special funding programmes for this purpose. Unfortunately, these can be expensive, particularly when many interest groups are involved. But not always; in Nepal, the NCS process includes a special NGO support programme which facilitates these contributions to strategy implementation. As little as US$1000 and focused technical help can ensure long-term input and mount a community project.

These three principles – representativeness, accountability and fairness – are difficult to maintain in practice. A reasonable aim is for as much of each as possible, within the constraints of budgets, timetables set by political deadlines, and capacity to manage a logistically complex process.

NGOs are diverse; and proliferate in types and numbers. They cover a spectrum from long-established, major international and national institutions to fragile, local operations with no staff or guaranteed funding. They may work on single issues, or broad-based development concerns. Almost all operate through organizing groups of people to make better use of their own resource.

The United Nations (UN) uses a broad definition of NGOs, to include non-profit organizations in the private sector, academic and research organizations and local government. This broader scope is reflected in the term much-used by Agenda 21: the ‘major groups’ or the ‘independent sectors’. NGOs are also known as the ‘third sector’ in contrast to the government and business sectors.

‘The vast majority of the [NGO] bodies are national or local in nature, and a successful transition to sustainable development will require substantial strengthening of their capacities.’
WCED 1987

Agenda 21 calls on governments to draw on the ‘expertise and views of NGOs’ for sustainable development. NGO expertise and views encompass many practical functions:

These functions are often complementary to government and the private sector, and can be exercised by individual NGOs or by partnerships and networks.

NGO coalitions can complement and buttress weak governments. This is common, for example, in the case of welfare and in engagement with local communities, where institutional constraints mean that governments are limited in their capacity to use participatory methods. On the other hand, NGO coalitions can act as a check and critic where governments and the private sector are too strong (for example, appropriating natural resources and causing adverse social and environmental impacts).

NCSs or NEAPs have tended to involve environmental NGOs more than other types. In contrast, sustainable development strategies aim to deal more extensively with the social dimension, in which development NGOs or community-based organizations (CBOs) have much experience. This is particularly the case as strategies address the common policy/planning system failure to link government to local communities and resource users; understand and act on local complexity; and enlist local resource users in implementation. All of these are areas where NGOs have comparative advantages: at the middle level between central government and local communities.

To date, national strategies show no standard pattern of NGO involvement. Governments have almost always been dominant in strategy processes and their outcomes. In some instances, outside agencies have had to ensure that local NGOs were formally involved. In Indonesia, Togo, Kenya and Rwanda, for example, the World Bank was responsible for initiating tripartite government/NGO/Bank meetings on sectoral and national development strategies.

Occasionally NGOs can play central roles in sustainable development in a government vacuum. In Kenya and Tanzania, for example, NGOs operate a major proportion of the health system. In Northern Pakistan, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) is the leading actor in rural development support. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Centre (BRAC) runs a large proportion of that country’s primary schools. These major operations are the exception. Yet their much-publicized success tends to have resulted in NGOs being viewed principally as ‘delivery mechanisms’ – or worse, as amateurs – rather than as development organizations with lessons to share.

Last, it must be remembered that NGOs do not act as one group. With respect to sustainable development, they cover a range of approaches:

It is the type of approach, as much as the function of the NGO, that will really determine how it can participate in a strategy. Many NGOs, particularly the solution-based groups, are comfortable with ideas of participation and consensus and actively promote them. Others, who work through lobbying and advocacy, tend to see their role as one of ‘disagreeing’, and prefer not to seek compromise. A few of these NGOs (particularly from environmental and welfare campaigning interests) therefore have taken approaches which appear to be incompatible with sustainable development, which depends upon negotiated rade-offs. Normally, such NGOs will stay on the margins of a participatory strategy. In such a strategy, the debate and consensus will take place within a middle ground; nonetheless, it should seek to involve all sectors and major groups.

It is important to seek representative, accountable members of the private sector (trades and industry associations, local chambers of commerce and industry and the trade unions, etc). Usually, however, it is also effective to bring in the private sector leaders who are responsible for forming new patterns of investment and operation in the country. This is the approach of the (global) Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD), Round Table structures in Canada, and in the Pakistan NCS.

Private sector involvement tends to mean that big business and industry, (ie those responsible for much of the resource use, waste creation and employment), are often important participants. However, this should not exclude the involvement of socially-significant smaller-scale industries which may be important for employment (the approach of Ireland); smaller businesses with particularly high resource requirements (for example, small-scale mining, or forest/ agricultural processing); or those industries with particularly sensitive environmental impacts (for example, tourism). National strategies in Germany and the Netherlands have programmes of intensive negotiations among industry associations, unions and the appropriate level of government to decide on operating standards and targets.

The local level is the most practical one for public participation, in the sense of involving individuals directly rather than through organizations. Few governments – or individuals for that matter – can afford the same degree of participation at state or national levels that can be achieved locally. If it is not practical to involve every community – and in national strategies it usually is not – a method of sampling communities will be needed. This should ensure that participating communities are reasonably representative of the diversity of communities in the country, the communities most affected by the priority issues, all geographical regions, ecological zones and livelihood types. Furthermore, the sampling methods should, of course, be able to obtain information and insights from the whole community – not just the leaders – and particularly from those who are in some way marginalized.

It is often difficult to sustain community interest in processes that take a long time. Loss of interest is inevitable if the strategy appears removed from people’s more pressing daily concerns. On the other hand, community strategies that meet people’s needs will attract and retain support for a long time. In general, the sooner the national strategy is complemented by local strategies and other local activities, the better. There is also a strong argument for undertaking a range of demonstration local strategies from the outset in a national strategy as a way of feeding and testing policies.

Different types, and different degrees, of participation are needed for each strategy task, and for each phase or cycle of strategy development. These must be planned for, based on the following factors:

The likely ‘parcel’ of main issues to be dealt with together needs to be elaborated. It may amount to, for example:

It needs to be decided at which main levels policy and institutional change are required to address the above issues. These will usually be:

However, often the key to effective change will be to link one or more levels; for example, a national strategy must not be thought of as entirely a national-level exercise.

The groups most likely to be affected by, or to affect, the strategy need to be identified. They include:

The definition of strategy theme and level, and stakeholder analysis, should be carried out at the same time. Together, they will help to refine the strategy objectives and approach, in particular the choice of participation structures and methodologies, and incentives required for participation.

The general range of participation structures and methods suitable for a given strategy will depend upon its theme and level, and the stakeholders in the process. The particular participation method used at any time within the strategy will depend on:

Structures available for participation: For most strategy tasks, the promising structures tend to be: the planning system; traditional structures (for example, village-based systems, religious systems); and specially-constituted committees, round tables and core groups and networks. For communications, information, education and monitoring tasks, the useful structures are: the
education system, extension system, the arts/theatre, and the media.

Participation methodologies: For survey, analysis and monitoring tasks, useful approaches include:

Box 12: Why is it difficult to institutionalize participation?

Why is participation so difficult to institutionalize, if it has so many intrinsic merits? The following seem to be the key constraints:

In the initial phases of a strategy, participation requires considerable time and extra effort in development of human resources. Generally no extra incentives are provided to the staff members for the extra effort required. To introduce participation requires more financial resources and is more costly compared to conventional programmes in the initial phase. Most institutions and programmes feel constrained in making such investments since they are evaluated primarily by the criteria of achievement of physical and financial targets.
Participation requires major reversals in the role of external professionals, from “management” to facilitation. This requires changes in behaviour and attitudes, and can only be gradual. It requires significant retraining but, usually, inadequate resources are devoted to training.
Participation also threatens conventional careers; professionals feel a loss of power in dealing with local communities as equals and including them in decision-making. This discourages professionals from taking risks and developing collaborative relationships with communities.
Participation and institutional development are difficult to measure and require using quantitative and qualitative performance indicators together. Existing monitoring and evaluation systems cannot measure these well; thus, physical and financial indicators, which are easier to measure, dominate the performance evaluation and impact analysis process.
While many programmes initiated by external agencies tend to use participatory methods for planning, they do not make corresponding changes in resource allocation mechanisms to local institutions, and they tend to retain financial decision-making powers for themselves. This hampers the growth of local institutions and leads to poor sustainability of the programmes.
Participation is a long drawn-out process and needs to be iterative in the initial period of two to five years before being scaled up and replicated. Most development programmes tend to blueprint the process of participation and institution building in the early phases without enough experimentation and iteration. As a result, the institutional forms which evolve are often ineffective.
Participation is also directly linked with equity. Many strategy implementation programmes, although initiated on the basis of consultation and participation of all groups, fail to monitor equity aspects. This results in programme management and benefits being usurped by elite sections of the community and in the majority losing interest. External institutions need to play a strong role in catalyzing equitable development of local institutions.

Any policy or strategy formulation process should take stock of existing efforts at local level, and use them as building blocks for strategy preparation. The process of strategy formulation has an important bearing on its successful implementation. Organic growth of a strat-egy through local and regional inputs, based on action and learning from results, increases the chances of all the stakeholders developing a long-term interest in implementation.

Source: Shah (1994)

The government planning and administration structure and the political structure will largely determine whether it is possible for a national strategy to be built up from local initiatives, or whether the initiative has to start from the top, and filter down through participation and existing decentralization structures. It will also partly determine what kind of mix of participatory and multi-disciplinary approaches can be taken. In Uganda, for example, the government’s decentralization policy allowed strong inputs from most of the 38 districts in the strategy (through consultations and three-day workshops) although the results have been selectively used at central government level. Some key constraints to institutionalizing participation are discussed in Box 12.

It is important at the outset that strategy participants know how far up the decision-making hierarchies their recommendations can and will reach. One of the failures of participation has been disillusionment resulting from unrealistic expectations about
its impact on policies and actions.

A phased approach to participation is likely to be best, beginning with the use of participation structures and methodologies with which the majority of participants are familiar. They should also be acceptable scientifically (trustworthiness criteria are available for participatory techniques as well as for ‘scientific’ approaches) and politically (representativeness and accountability). It is very difficult to bring about intensive consultation with all the stakeholder groups in an initial strategy cycle. As with the scope of the strategy, it is best to build up to greater ambitions; otherwise the strategy runs the risk of being overwhelmed. The capacity for participation can be built throughout the process; indeed, participation has been instrumental in much of the capacity-building of many successful national and local strategies.

It is important to link national-level strategy experience with local-level participation experience. Participation in strategies can have both ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ reach. Horizontal participation is required across sectoral interest groups, government ministries, and communities in different parts of the country, to ensure that impacts across sectors or regions are dealt with. Vertical participation is required to facilitate a two-way flow of influence and to address problems that are experienced farther down the hierarchy; from national to local levels, or from leaders right down to marginalized groups and individuals. Vertical participation is also required because localized activities will lead to cumulative problems experienced farther up the hierarchy.

Recent national strategies have tended to concentrate on horizontal participation, with extensive government and academic contributions at national level. Much multi-disciplinary analysis has been undertaken, and policies have been changed, often extensively – at least on paper. In almost all of the strategies, there was relatively little participation initially. However, as a result of these strategies there were, in many cases, strong recommendations for participation in subsequent local strategy planning,
implementation and monitoring (see Box 10). Although there have been some improvements to national-level government institutions and some regulatory instruments have been introduced, there has generally been little impact so far on the ground. There appear to be many local blocks to implementation.

Local participatory approaches, conversely, show examples of both horizontal and vertical participation. There has been considerable involvement of government, communities and sectoral interests at many levels – sometimes resulting in impressive work on the ground, with much generation of local information and some localized institutional change. Of these approaches, particular progress has been made in:

Although most did not start as local strategies, many of these successful local projects have had to evolve strategic approaches to thrive, linking with national policy and institutional initiatives.

In spite of individual successes, the problem of ‘scaling up’ such local participatory initiatives remains plagued by policy and institutional inertia. In many instances, it may be necessary for government departments to sort out their own differences – using multi-disciplinary approaches – before embarking on full-scale participation. In Australia, the very different approaches of federal, state and municipal strategies have necessitated an Inter-governmental Agreement on the Environment to ensure
consistency among them; this has had the effect of putting the federal strategy in the ascendancy.

A number of approaches have managed to make the leap from participation at local level to national level; for example, Gestion de Terroir in the Sahel, which has always addressed the administrative and legal constraints to local activity, and which gradually builds up a larger, national-level presence. The AKRSP in Northern Pakistan has led to a major government-led National Rural Support Programme. This may have been influenced by the fact that AKRSP staff also played key roles in the Pakistan NCS.

In general, however, we know that the genesis and implementation of national strategies and local participatory efforts have tended to be very separate. Furthermore, there have been few efforts to unite them to their mutual advantage. The successful harmonization of national strategies and local participatory efforts will be dependent on the following factors.

There must be a conscious effort by national strategy coordinators to improve top-down and bottom-up approaches. A variety of actors and structures can be used to explore possible existing links, including NGOs and local authorities, traditional structures, specially- formed committees and round tables, and major sustainable development projects. Alternatively, new methods for forging links could be adopted, including participatory inquiry, voluntary agreements and joint management.

At the policy level, capacity is needed to deal with the rich insights and information coming from local participatory approaches, to devolve appropriate power to participating partners, and to monitor the impacts. At the local level, capacity is needed to take up the challenges that newer policies offer. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that it is at the middle level – the province or municipality – where capacity-building can reap the most benefits. At this level, there is much potential to link top levels (where policy is set) and bottom levels (where policy is implemented, and from where policy-relevant information is required).

Public information, education and communications (IEC) activities are integral to the entire strategy process because:

The most appropriate IEC activities will vary with each strategy: Box 13 gives some key questions which can help determine optimum communications strategies.

During all phases of the strategy, the secretariat can act as a clearing house for communications; for example, organizing workshops and briefings, publishing a newsletter of strategy activities, reporting on progress to different groups, and maintaining an information base. In addition to issuing press releases, regular briefings of the media will be needed. Certain activities will be more specific to given strategy tasks and cycles:

Box 13: Communication strategies

The National Institute of Design in India has defined a sequence of eight questions which it follows in the field when developing communications strategies for national or local development programmes. This approach has been tested and refined through more than a decade of field experience. The eight key questions to ask are:

Target audience: whose behaviour must communication attempt to change?
Target response: what is the behaviour change that is needed?
Research involved: what do we need to know about existing knowledge, attitudes and practices before planning our messages?
Target message: what messages can be exchanged between planners/activists and target audiences to help achieve the desired response?
Media: what media are best suited to the exchange of the target message?
Media resource institutions and individuals: what skills and talent can be drawn upon to help develop and implement media decisions?
Budget: what will be the cost of communication plans to reach each target audience?
Evaluation criteria: what goals and indicators will be used to monitor the intended behaviour change?

Evaluation should lead to reviewing each step in a sequence, and reactivating the sequence in the next phase of the communications strategy.

The common practice of referring to the strategy document as ‘the strategy’ is misleading and encourages people to spend excessive efforts preparing documents instead of developing and implementing the strategy. Documents are only intermediate products of the process.

Strategy documents, covering at least the policy frameworks and action plans, are essential nonetheless, so that all participants know what was agreed to and what is expected of them. Without documents, the strategy may quickly lose coherence and break up into ad hoc decisions dictated by the immediate needs of the agencies concerned. The documents need not be too lengthy, however. Coherence, consensus and clear direction are important features of a strategy and the documents will need to express these features, while providing an overall framework. Other components of the strategy, such as the investment portfolio, may require longer and more detailed documentation.

To be most effective, the central strategy document needs to be published and widely available in its approved form. overnment agencies, local authorities, major NGOs and many businesses will need the full docu-ment. But highly technical reports are not useful for politicians and busy decision-makers. High quality, clear, concise documents written in everyday language, with charts, maps and illustrations, should be used for these groups. The main strategy documents may need to be in several
different forms, each targeted to a particular audience.

Condensed information can be made available to the public – in local languages where appropriate – and to schools and universities, the latter highlighting educational aspects of the issues. Audio and video versions could also be produced (for example, as was done for the Pakistan NCS and local Agenda 21s for UK local authorities).

It is important to encourage diverse groups to implement, monitor and revise the strategy. Ultimately, the success of a strategy will depend on changing some attitudes and types of behaviour, and strengthening others. Methods of soliciting feedback
include:

An IEC plan will be needed. It should identify key participants/audiences, topics and means of communicating them, and roles in IEC. The plan will obviously be revised and more detailed once strategy implementation begins; the Pakistan NCS devotes a whole chapter to the communications strategy.

Skills in planning and running an IEC programme will be vital; as will training, where these are in short supply. The IEC team will need to understand the conceptual basis, genesis and dynamics of the strategy, as well as the technical issues. A priority task for the IEC team will be to set up a network of principal communications agents and media for different localities, topics and groups.

Effective media communication will empower individuals and groups, enabling them to use their skills and resources and identify new ways of working together. The media should, therefore, enable participating groups to communicate what they feel, what they know, and what they want. Accordingly, successful communication cannot be solely a one-way media campaign, but must be a two-way process of information exchange and learning. The key will be in linking participants with appropriate
media.

The most effective media for communication will differ according to country and locality circumstances, topic, audience/ participant group and cost considerations. Mass media should be seen as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, other media and public information and education in the process of behaviour change. We have become accustomed to thinking of mass media as prime agents of change. They can and do contribute to change, and they have importance in raising the awareness of the general public and in influencing key decision-makers and opinion-formers. Yet, the real change must take place at the local, community and individual level – and here ‘mass’ approaches are of limited relevance.

In many low-income areas, print and electronic media may not be appropriate for most participants; here, person-to-person communication (including entertainment and performing arts) may have greater impact. Agricultural extension agents – if generally effective – will also need to be involved.

When creating a strategy constituency in the print, electronic and traditional media, and in the education system, it will be important not to restrict the role of these various media to delivering strategy ‘messages’. Where socio-political conditions allow, media roles should encompass those of strategy critic, monitor, and solicitor of opinions.

One of the major challenges facing many strategies is to increase the level and effectiveness of participation. The constraints to participation outlined in Box 12 need particular attention. Priority may be given to:

Strategies based fully upon participation will find that their institutional framework, management and cost structure begin to change in line with the trends listed in Box 8. The national strategy secretariat and task force, for example, may be complemented by local groups, which come to take a lead in further iterations of the strategy. Strategy teams may increasingly bring in people who have been active in participatory projects, but who so far have had little to do with the strategy process. National planning procedures may better accommodate multi-actor approaches, and previously marginalized groups may share platforms with recognized authorities.

With participation structures up and running and joint efforts at strategy implementation under way, more contentious issues may then be tackled; this could mean greater concentration on mediation and conflict resolution. The funding structure should begin to incorporate new longer- term provisions for joint action, such as trust funds for community initiatives. All of this will have major implications for the way that strategies are managed. The critical mass of effort should then begin to turn away from national strategies and toward local strategies.

		Updated 10 June, 2003