Name: Richel B.

Benedicto SAIT - BSSW 3 August 11, 2018

Introduction:

I. Learning Context/ Topic

B. Peoples contribution to development; &
C. Peoples involvement in the decision making regarding the nature and process of
development.
II. Learning Objectives
At the this topic we’ll be able to:
 create individual development plans.
 provide Performance metrics.
III. Teaching/ Learning activities/
 Lecture and discussion
IV. Context
B. PEOPLES CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT
People being involve at the center of decision making so that:
 Their voices directly affect decisions about their lives
 People in professional roles understand hoe their actions impact on peoples lives
 Services and communities work in ways that reflect what people say they want and
need-not what others think they need.
“People have more control over their lives”
Other Words:
 Power
 Control
 Influence
 Rights
 Respect
 Co-production
 Being listened to
 Being heard
 Being included
 Being a partner
 Being a citizen
 Being a person
What authority do we give to peoples voices?
 Information- we tell people what is happening
 Communication-we tell people what we are doing might change things if they make
a really good case
 Consultation-we discuss what we intend doing,but at the end of the day we have
the right to decide what happens
 Negotiation- both parties must be happy with the end position
 Handling over control
C. PEOPLES INVOLVEMENT IN THE DECISION MAKING REGARDING THE
NATURE AND PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT
We need to think about participation in decision making in a number of different
places:
 Peoples own lives-overall hopes and day to day decisions(personal context)
 Organizational decision making -including about a persons own service and
support (service context)
 Major strategic decision-making at regional or national level (policy context)
 What happens in a persons own community-beyond the boundaries of service land
(community context)

A QUICK WORDS ON PEOPLES INVOLMENT IN THE DECISION MAKING:

If services are not supporting people to be participating members of their local
communities,then what sort of life are people being supported to achieve? Services need
to think of strategies to:
 Promote social and community inclusion
 Use tools like community mapping
 Support people to be community members not tourists
 Support activities that promote real relationships e.g. paid their work
 Evaluate services by whether they promote inclusion

Person Centered Planning

 People working out their own vision for their lives
 A set of hopes and aims that informs services assessments
 A living process that changes as peoples lives change
 Support plans that then describe how this will be made to happen
DECIDING TOGETHERS SIX BUILDING BLOCKS ORGANISATIONAL
PARTICIPATION
1. Leadership that leads by example, builds committed teams and allows time for
change to happen
2. Communication, listening to people, improving staff communication skills, esp.
For those who don’t use words.
3. Changing organizational practice, nothing about us without us, do meetings
differently, employ people.
4. Work with advocacy groups, as partner, with everyone having access to
advocacy (in all its form)
5. Empower staff, because disempowered staff will not empower the people they
support.
6. Partnership working, think whole-life, multi-agency partnership include people
themselves.

Co-production
 It is a practice in the delivery of public services in which citizens are involved in the
creation of public policies and services.
 It is contrasted with a transaction based method of service delivery in which
citizens consume public services which are conceived of and provided by
governments.

The concept of co-production;

 People are recognized as experts in setting their own support needs and those of
their peers.
 People have things to contribute to planning and decision making about their lives.
 People are involved from the outset in a partnership around decision making.
 These ideas are built into the whole organizational and planning system.

SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF COPRODUCTION:

1. People are involved throughout; think about who needs to be engaged.
2. People feel safe up and are listened to: agree how to support each other in making
 decisions.
3. We work on the issues that are important to people: work together to agree the
issues.
4. It is clear how decisions are made agree what it is you want to be different and
what success looks like.
5. People’s skills and experiences are used to achieve changed: Identify who has
what skills and how to use them.
6. Meetings, materials and venues are accessible: these are different ways to be
involved and be heard.
7. Process is evaluated by looking at the changes in people’s lives.
Take action - just do it!
“Don’t wait until you’re ready to co-produce, just make a start”

Co-production - pro’s and con’s

Potential Benefits; Potential Challenges;
 Value for money  People will often need support to co-
 Additional expertise produce
 Health benefits and prevention  Those with the power will feel
 Practical skills challenged or threatened
 Social capital  It needs sustained support and
independence

Proper managing and unity in achieving long term goals.

 There must be a firmness of decision making by the leader or head then able to
foresee and control themselves in all the possible risk by active and unceasing
collaboration of each people in a certain organization to attain the balance between the
implemented choice and possible risk on it.
 Maximizing choice and control, whist effectively managing risk.

Over the past few decades the phrase “community participation” has gained
increasing usage in academic literature, policy making documents and
international conference papers as a key element in attempts to attain
sustainable development in countries. The issue of community participation is
now an established principle when one considers issues dealing with decision-
making to achieve sustainable development. Societal structures in the
developing world still revolve around small clusters of communities defined by
geo-political, economic and cultural bonds especially in the rural areas. To such
societies, the top-down decision-making regime has been seen to be most
ineffective in terms of achieving sustainable development.In this regime policy
is dictated by those in power and the rural communities are relegated to the
position of recipients and implementers. Because of this, rural communities are
alienated from resources they should rightfully control, manage and benefit
from ,There is a need to engage communities in Africa in participatory planning
and budgeting.

Participatory planning is a process by which a community aims to reach a given

socio-economic goal by consciously diagnosing its problems and drafting a
course of action to resolve those problems.Experts are needed, only as
facilitators. Plans prepared by outside experts, irrespective of their technical
soundness, cannot inspire the people to participate in their
implementation.People's budgeting at the local government level. Participatory
budgeting is a process where people have the opportunity to affect the
allocation of public resources by means of a local government perspective
taking into account sectoral priorities.

Engaging civil society and citizens’ groups in resources management has

enabled improved service delivery and accountability of the public sector. It has
given the people greater opportunities to influence policy making processes
and the implementation of policies, programs and projects.Empowerment of
communities through their involvement in the decision-making processes, from
top levels to low levels, is vital for supporting pro-poor policies, programs,
projects, improved service delivery, poverty reduction, and the attainment of
the millennium development goals. This will contribute towards preparing
appropriate policies, programs, projects that improve service delivery, poverty
reduction, and the attainment of the millennium development goals.

Involving communities in local decision-making

Today, nearly all countries recognize the need to involve communities and
other actors, such as NGOs and the private sector, as partners in sustainable
natural resources management programs. Results from these have convincingly
demonstrated that when communities are empowered with responsibilities and
rights for the management, and receive benefits from them, they come to
recognize the importance of sustainable natural resources management and
respect forest management rules. It is important that governments of
developing countries involve communities in participatory planning and
budgeting in local decisions. This can be achieved through involving the
communities in local policy formulation which can be adopted at national level
thus guaranteeing a bottom-up approach in governance and management.
Policy formulation can integrate the communities through granting them veto
power in voting for programs, projects and activities. The communities should
also be awarded the opportunity to formulate their own ideas which will be
supported financially and technically by the government, NGOs and other
institutions. This will increase community ownership of resources and processes
thereby encouraging sustainable utilization of natural resources.

Conclusions

This study concludes that is more meaningful and effective where the local
population is involved not as co-operating users but as natural resource
managers and even owner managers, in their own rights. In this regard,
arrangements based on use interests are less attractive because they ignore
local custodial and socio-environmental interests. The study revealed that local
communities were not involved in policy formulation or in decision- making
processes through planning and budgeting. However, the communities were
heavily involved in the implementation stage of different projects and are key
elements in the success of any resource management program, project or
activity. The lack of participation by the local communities caused conflict
between project managers and members of the communities leading to
resentment.This ultimately resulted in conscious and sub-conscious sabotage of
resources.

The study also showed that huge dependence on donor funds was symptomatic
of a lack of active community participation in project formulation and provided
a sure recipe for failure.Local empowerment, imbuing communities with greater
authority over the use of natural resources. Under the right circumstances, they
can also bring important benefits to poor people and poor communities and
thus promote sustainable development.

Recommendations

• It is necessary to create awareness among communities about the need to

participate, manage, and own their natural resources. Government
officials and NGO agents should not ignore indigenous knowledge systems
so that they do not propose and impose irrelevant solutions to the
communities they seek to assist. Moreover there is need for authorities to
create a rapport and trust with communities and to advance their interests
above all other things.
• There is need to institute legal mechanisms for benefit sharing as this
improves commitment towards sustainable natural resources
management. Legal frameworks are also imperative to ensure
accountability and transparency of all stakeholders.


V. References
 http://www.fedvol.ie/_fileupload/Sharing%20Innovative%20Learning/Decision
%20Making%20Event/Rob%20Greig%20Presentation.pdf
Related Source
 https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_00.htm
 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/12460125.2016.1187395