COMMENTARY: Some insights – Participation

For more than a quarter of a century, bona fide Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and more broadly Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Dominica and all over the world, have been in the forefront of efforts to mainstream the participation of ordinary people in their own development.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) should help shape decisions, not hear about the decisions after they have been made.  Real consultations involve seeking advice from CSOs  to inform decision-making and ensuring their input will be taken on-board.  It also involves trust and mutual respect.

In many reports commissioned on citizens participation in poverty reduction processes, it was discovered that despite the fact that many NGO’s and Civil Society Organizations have been leading the fight against poverty and destruction of our environment, these groups have not been integrally engaged in national efforts to do so.  The existing mechanisms for engagement of civil society are inadequate in properly identifying key stakeholders in the process.  Opportunities to engage are often infrequent and devoid of a sense of genuine participation in policy and project design and implementation. The noble idea of participatory democracy continue to evade the country

Participation is a process, through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives, decisions and resources, which affect them.  Essentially participation should involve structured, orderly and effective inclusion of key stakeholders, including the poor, or representative organizations such as churches, community groups, youth groups, women’s organizations, farmers, small trader groups, service clubs or any other legally constituted bodies desirous of working to influence the shape, content and impact of major projects and public policy.

Consultations should seek to broaden the effective process of ownership of public policy and projects.  It departs from the views expressed by a few that public policy and projects, for example, land use, or oil refinery, are developed in the name of the people who elect government to manage their affairs and at some point such policy or project are likely to affect the land and people as they are implemented.  As the ultimate owners and recipient of the goods and services produced by governments, people become the most critical stakeholders in the process and as such ought to be given the opportunity to participate before any decisions, which affect their lives are taken on their behalf.

As such, all barriers to effective consultation and participation of these key stakeholders, including legal and cultural obstacles, time and resource constraints, lack of access to information, illiteracy, lack of transport or finances must be identified as early as possible and specific plans designed to overcome these.

For any process of consultation to be successful it must be based on a constant and unimpeded flow of information.  In this respect that information flow must travel in two directions – from the policy makers as government, to the recipient and participant beneficiaries of the goods and services, and in the other direction, from the stakeholders to the policy makers.

Information must be user-friendly, accessible and targeted to the variety of audiences to which it is sent.  Complicated systems for accessing information will defeat the purpose of information flow principle and frustrate participation.  Knowledge and understanding is key to participation, and must be facilitated.

Stakeholders want to feel ownership or control of the process that will ultimately affect them.  When this control and ownership are missing consultation becomes meaningless.

An absolute no-no in any consultative process is the imposition of conditions on participation.  Policy makers cannot expect to encourage and promote active participation of civil society in any project if such participation is going to be based on them meeting some conditionality.

Inadequate or slow dissemination of vital information about important national projects will cause engagement problems, while insufficient time for consultation, lack of trust and a mindset that the Nature Isle needs an oil refinery by all means, will further complicate matters.

Stakeholders must never take simple consultation for participation and many policy makers often mistake consultation as genuine participation.  Stakeholders have to ensure that information is forthcoming.  Knowledgeable persons will always see through “fluff”  and those who cannot will never be able to make a meaningful contribution without good information.  Consultation without timely information is unheard of in this age of technology.

Whether the legal or project authorities are bound by any of the consultative process is a matter of local laws. Do you remember the series of consultations with Civil Society Organizations and individuals that helped to craft a National Integrated Development Plan?  Didn’t the Plan instruct on the interconnections relative to the development of Dominica?  For example, aren’t health issues connected to sports to food and nutrition to education to agriculture to manufacturing to energy to environment to housing to human beings to… and the connectivity goes on?    Integrated development means just that.

Participation of people in major national projects should be a component of the Programme Plan itself.  Sharing information and consulting, from the beginning, has proven to assist Governments in making right decisions. History will absolve the many protectors of our Dominican environment, consistently informing the public through timely advocacy on alternative ideas to save our beloved Dominica, Nature Isle of the World.