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Prajateerpu : a citizens jury. Scenario workshop on food and farming futures for Andhra Pradesh, India

PIMBERT, Michel P
WAKEFORD, Tom
2002

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Prajapeertu ('people's verdict') was devised as a means of allowing the people most affected by the Andhra Pradesh government's Vision 2020 for food and farming to shape a vision of their own. The members of the jury, drawn from communities of small and marginal farmers, interrogated a range of witnesses including representatives from the Government of AP, a transnational agrochemical company, NGOs, universities and government advisory panels and compared alternative development models for the rural economy. They rejected land consolidation, displacement of rural people, contract farming, GM crops, and mechanisation, all of which formed part of Vision 2020, and instead called for self-reliance and community control over resources and recognition of local knowledge and institutions. The report covers the methodology and implementation of, and rationale behind, deliberative democracy and citizen empowerment, and how these processes can be used to further political change, human rights, social justice, and empowerment. [Publisher's abstract]

Participation and sustainability in social projects : the experience of the local development programme (PRODEL) in Nicaragua

STEIN, Alfredo
2001

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This paper describes the work of the Local Development Programme (PRODEL) in the eight cities in Nicaragua where it provided low-income groups with small grants for infrastructure and community works projects, and loans for housing improvement and micro-enterprises. Donor funds were matched by municipal, community, and household contributions. Between 1994 and 1998 more than 38,000 households benefited and both loan programmes achieved good levels of cost recovery. The paper describes the micro-planning workshops and other methodologies, and explains how local governments and the bank responsible for managing the loans learned to work in a more participatory way, and it outlines the measures taken to ensure that the needs and priorities of women and children were addressed. The paper considers lessons learned in sustaining the initiatives and institutionalising citizen participation in social programmes, and describes how PRODEL's methods have come to be used by central and local governments in other programmes. [Publisher's abstract]

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