The Drum Beat 440 - People, Participation, and Power

On June 18-21, the 2008 CIVICUS World Assembly will bring together members of civil society, government, donors, business, and media who will explore “acting together for a just world” through the focus theme of “People, Participation and Power”. The main questions addressed in this assembly will be: the role of civil society; why civil society's participation is resisted; what civil society needs to do to overcome those challenges; an identification of the obstacles to civil society's participation; and an outline of the importance of civil society participation.
For more information on this event, please click here.

This issue of The Drum Beat provides summary examples of projects, strategic thinking, and resources from around the world that are relevant to the World Assembly theme of civil society, "people, participation, and power".

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PEOPLE, PARTICIPATION, AND POWER

ACTION [Focus on Africa]
Find more: click here for more Experiences.

1.Amani Peoples Theatre (APT) - Kenya
APT is an organisation that brings together volunteer trainers to use their talents, skills, and experiences to employ interactive participatory theatre for conflict transformation, peace-building, and development in Kenya. The APT process integrates education, entertainment, and research in exploring context-specific issues related to conflict and development and enhancing the community's search for creative, non-violent responses. The project objectives include to:

• promote dialectic dialogue with an emphasis on critical reflection through understanding and active participation in a communicative environment. This is done with traditional African philosophical thought and communication processes in mind.
• facilitate the process of sharing of experiences by encouraging collaborative reflection by way of inter-community artistic exchanges and documentation of experiences.
• build the capacity of community leaders and other individuals in positions of power and governance to become peace and development practitioners by creating the space in which an outline of the responsibilities, powers, processes and limitations of the central and local governments are understood and judged.
• sharpen, through the use of people's theatre, the ability of community leaders and other local opinion shapers to critically analyse conflicts and devise alternative and joint approaches to peace building and peaceful transformation of conflicts.
• identify the cultural traits which keep on producing conflict among different Kenyan communities and preventing peace, and re-establish a working relationship between the conflicting communities and peoples.

Contact: owiso@aptkenya.org OR apt@aptkenya.org

2.Citizen Journalism - Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Launched in July 2007, this project aims to build the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) and ordinary citizens to become “shapers of news.” The 3-year initiative includes the creation of an information knowledge-sharing portal and training activities. This includes: improving capacity of selected African CSOs including community media organisation to use media tools effectively and in a journalistically sound manner; increasing collaborative networking, learning and knowledge sharing between participants and training partners on the regional and the country level facilitating improved access to and higher quality of media contributions; and increasing presence of and access to diverse and journalistically sound content on the situation of women and other marginalised groups in the media of the countries involved.
Contact Noma Rangana noma@hivos.co.za

3.HakiElimu Community Governance Programme - Tanzania
The Community Governance programme of HakiElimu, a Tanzanian non-profit organisation established in 2001, aimed to enable communities - including parents, teachers, and students - to transform schools and influence decision making by facilitating participation in school and community governance. HakiElimu outlines the following communication strategies as being part of the Community Governance programme: strengthening/democratising school committees; strengthening student and teacher associations; community information and media; and enabling participatory planning processes. By the end of 2003, 10 young women and men served as interns at HakiElimu and developed capacity to pursue social justice through civil society action.
Contact: info@hakielimu.org

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For a complete listing of content related to "civil society" and governance on The CI website, please click here.

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THINKING
Find more: click here for more Strategic Thinking summaries; or click here for more Evaluations.

4.So We Think Democracy is Growing?: Rethinking Social Exclusion
by Kumi Naidoo
This article describes how social exclusion works and is used in developed countries. In a country where citizens are not exercising the right to vote, Naidoo contends that it is the responsibility of political leaders to work harder to ensure that political democracy is accompanied by economic democracy "and the social and political inclusion of all citizens in the world." Naidoo describes civil society organisations as needing to coordinate their work more effectively and to better understand how others function within different parts of civil society. He suggests that these groups should examine how communities of citizens are prioritized; who is socially excluded in the governance or organisations; and how work should be prioritised in respect to these constituencies.

5.Governance Reform under Real World Conditions: A Dialogue on Communication Challenges
This document is a report from the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) on a workshop of academic researchers which intended to gather knowledge and recommendations on the use of information and communication to support governance reform under real world conditions. The group discussed questions including: how to use political analysis to guide communication strategies in governance reform efforts; how to secure political will for governance reforms; how to build broad, pro-change coalitions; how to help reformers convert indifference or hostility into support for reform objectives; and how to instigate citizen demand for good governance and accountability. Each workshop session is represented in the report by a summary of presentations, approaches and techniques, and participant feedback. The 4th session explored the issue of how to build broad coalitions of pro-change influentials, and what to do about powerful vested interests. Approaches included focusing on these influentials and on networks and people who connect networks or brokers of relationships who cross organisational boundaries; using broad-based coalitions to get on the policy agenda; and engaging and partnering with civil society in creative ways.

6.Theory and Practice of Participatory Communication: The Case of the FAO Project "Communication for Development in Southern Africa"
by Paolo Mefalopulos
This dissertation shares research motivated by the observation that participatory communication - characterised by a horizontal flow of communication based primarily on dialogue - is increasingly being considered a key component of development projects around the world. After reviewing the literature on the subject, the author offers an in-depth review and comparison of how participatory communication has been conceived theoretically, in the literature, and practically, in a project dedicated to this approach. That is, this paper centres around a case study analysis of Communication for Development in Southern Africa, a project that was launched in 1994 Harare, Zimbabwe, by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations with funding from the Italian Government. The project was intended to promote the sustainable and systematic use of communication in the development process to help ensure people's participation at all levels, as part of an effort to identify and implement appropriate technologies and policies for the prevention of poverty. The author provides a review and a collection of impressions based on project documents that - in general - indicate that participation and communication were integrated into a single systematic approach that had not been experienced in the region up to that moment.

7.Civil Society Index: Assessing and Strengthening Civil Society Worldwide
by V. Finn Heinrich
The CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CSI) is a participatory needs assessment and action planning tool for civil society in countries around the world, with the aim to create a knowledge base and an impetus for civil society strengthening initiatives. This report provides a detailed account of the CSI project approach, as well as the conceptual and analytical framework and research methodology of the project. It discusses the issues around conceptualising and assessing civil society in a comparative manner in countries around the world.

8.Children Speak Up
by Monideepa Sahu
This article reports on the expansion of children's participation within local government in India. The Karnataka state government's panchayati raj ministry issued an order in late 2007 making it mandatory for all panchayats [villages] to provide children a platform to put their concerns forward directly to elected representatives at special children's "gram sabhas" [children's assemblies]. The order makes it mandatory for panchayats to report back to the ministry on action taken to address issues raised by the children.

9.Civil Society Involvement in Rapid Assessment, Analysis and Action Planning (RAAAP) for Orphans and Vulnerable Children
by Louisa Gosling
The purpose of the RAAAP is to undertake an analysis of the situation of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) and the response in each country, and then, based on this analysis, to produce a national plan of action to scale up and improve the quality of the response to OVC. This plan is then ratified by the government and provides a unifying framework that brings together the activities of all the different stakeholders under a set of common objectives and strategies. This includes all interventions for OVC, including activities of national and local government, donors and civil society organisations (CSOs). The first round of RAAAPs were carried out in 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2004. The review methodology consisted of: a) a review of RAAAP reports and action plans, b) an email questionnaire distributed to CSOs through members of the OVC working group of the UK Consortium on AIDS and International Development, and c) follow-up interviews with international and national NGOs, community and faith-based organisations. This report provides findings from that review.

10.Generating Genuine Demand with Social Accountability Mechanisms
This report summarises discussion at a Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) workshop in Paris, France, exploring how to increase the effectiveness of and demand for social accountability mechanisms. "In political systems where citizens have little power to formally influence their governments, creative tools known as 'social accountability (SA) mechanisms' have been developed, whereby people can directly hold their governments to task-in particular for the delivery of public services. Among the mechanisms to have gained widespread acceptance are the Citizen's Report Card, the Community Scorecard, the Social Audit, Participatory and Transparent Monitoring, and the Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS)." This workshop sought to explore how to ensure more impact from and demand for SA mechanisms. It also sought to explore how they can create behaviour change in public authorities or agencies. It examined contributions from the fields of communication and allied social sciences and, particularly, strategies from social movements and collective action.

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Please VOTE in our Democracy and Governance POLL:

Your reaction?: "Democracy is not about discovering the 'popular will.' Rather, it is an institutional process where people compete for power, and a method of resolving conflicts between elites." [Prof Mushtaq Khan - SOAS - London, The Drum Beat 434]:

• True - essentially correct.
• False - popular will is what democracy is all about.
• Half true - there is a dynamic between popular will and elite conflict resolution.
• Wrong on both counts - democracy is about neither popular will nor elite conflict resolution [please COMMENT in the box provided].

VOTE and COMMENT - click here - Top Right side of the website.

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RESOURCES
Find more: click here for more Materials.

11.The Art of Facilitating Participation: Releasing the Power of Grassroots Communication
by Shirley A. White (ed.)
This book discusses the concept of facilitating participation from the perspective of a global development discourse. It presents the experiences of facilitators from a variety of settings as they write about their field experience in attempting to enable people's participation in development. It combines conceptual thinking with practical strategies for participatory projects.

12.The Participation Guide: Involving Those Directly Affected in Health and Development Communication Programs
by Marcela Tapia, Angela Brasington, and Lynn Van Lith
This resource presents a set of guidelines to design and implement participatory health and development communication programmes. It includes tips and tools to involve individuals and groups in the various stages of programming. The Guide's intended audience includes programme officers and staff, and development practitioners interested in involving those directly concerned in the health and development communication programmes support.

13.Community Mobilisation Manual (Advocacy Expert Series)
This guide was adapted from training materials utilised by Pact Tanzania and grew out Pact's experience in implementing the Tanzania Advocacy Partnership Programme (TAPP) and Pact's work with faith based institutions. According to the guide, community participation does not happen by itself. It must be stimulated, encouraged and facilitated. This book is aimed at those who are seeking tools, ideas and approaches to facilitate the mobilisation of communities around a cause.

14.Civic Education and Community Mobilisation: Train-the-Trainer Manual
The aim of this manual is to assist trainers to reach grassroots people more effectively with civic education and community mobilisation workshops. According to the publication, the use of this manual should be flexible. Facilitators have the option of selecting methods to be used at a particular workshop, depending on the intended group and the topic to be discussed.

15.Monitoring Government Policies: A Toolkit for Civil Society Organisations in Africa
This toolkit explores ways of working for change by monitoring government policies. It is especially designed to help African civil society organisations analyse and monitor government policy implementation. It aims to help foster a conversation in society on policies and how well those policies work. High-quality research, accompanied by strong campaigning and lobbying, is, according to this document, a key way for local organisations to hold their governments to account. The tools included in this document are based on a 2-year participatory project, including 3 workshops, with partner organisations in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, and Malawi.

16.CIVICUS Global Survey of the State of Civil Society, Volume 1
by V. Finn Heinrich
The first of two volumes, this publication provides concise profiles of 44 countries. It looks at factors such as civic engagement, democracy, corruption, social capital, gender equity and civil society’s role in policy, and the overall health of each country’s civil society. In most chapters, assessments are followed by policy recommendations.

17.CIVICUS Global Survey of the State of Civil Society, Volume 2
by V. Finn Heinrich and Lorenzo Fioramonti
The second of two volumes, this publication offers an analysis of key issues facing civil society worldwide, including contributions from researchers and civil society practitioners. The book draws on the information collected by the CIVICUS Civil Society Index project in more than 45 countries to explore issues such as civil society’s accountability, its relation to the state and corporate sector, and its role in governance and development. It also includes regional overviews of the state of civil society in different continents.

18.Community Radio: The People's Voice
This handbook aims to offer guidelines on setting up, managing, and sustaining a community radio station. It looks at how community radio can be used as a tool in social and economic transformation, and how it can fill the gap between the public and commercial broadcasters, especially at the grassroots level. Meant to be a reference tool, it offers theoretical and concrete principles to anyone involved in or wishing to be a part of community radio and its role in rebuilding civil society from the ground up.

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Please also see the following archived issues of The Drum Beat:

The Drum Beat 367 - Assessing Communication for Empowerment
October 2 2006

The Drum Beat 265 - The Power of Community Consultation
September 6 2004

The Drum Beat 201 - Political Participation
June 16 2003

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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

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