Professional Documents
Culture Documents
and prospects
Yap Kioe Sheng
Introduction
Whenever low-income housing projects fail to produce the desired result, the
failure is attributed to a lack of community participation. When governments do
not have the funds to launch a low-income housing programme, community
participation is supposed to compensate for this lack of resources.
There exists a considerable confusion about the exact meaning of the term
"community participation". All sorts of activities (ranging from house construction to discussions about loan repayment schedules) by groups of people as well as
by individual persons are classed under the term. This article attempts to clarify
the term "community participation" with reference to urban low-income housing
projects.
In squatter settlement upgrading projects, the authorities regularize the
illegal land tenure of squatters and provide basic infrastructure in the settlements. These interventions are expected to be sufficient incentives for the
residents to start improving their houses. In sites-and-services schemes, the
authorities provide serviced plots to the urban poor and expect them to produce
their own houses, through individual or mutual self-help or the employment of
small contractors.
However, in urban housing projects, self-reliance is not really feasible as legal land
tenure and the provision of infrastructure requires government involvement
Some decades ago, the term "community development" was in vogue, but it
seems, at least in urban areas, hardly to be used any more. The United Nations
defined community development as "the processes by which the efforts of the
people themselves are united with those of governmental authorities to improve
the economic, social and cultural conditions of communities, to integrate these
communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to
national progress." In this respect, community development has two essential
elements:
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the participation by the people in efforts to improve their level of living with as
much self-reliance as possible on their own initiatives;
the provision of technical and other services in ways which encourage
initiative, self-help and mutual help and makes these more effective (UNDESA, 1977, p. 2).
Participation
If we accept the common usage of the term community participation as being
the participation by a community as well as its individual members, we can ask
ourselves the question: participation in what? This article deals with community
participation in urban low-income housing projects, but that merely provides the
framework in which participation takes place.
Sometimes, community participation is identified with (mutual) self-help
construction of houses, i.e. the construction of houses by (groups of) families.
However, self-help construction is a much narrower concept than commumty
participation; it is often restricted to the provision of unskilled labour for which
payment is received in kind (sweat equity). If people are expected to provide
labour (and money) for the construction of their houses, they must also have a say
in the planning and design of their houses and the neighbourhood. Community
participation is the involvement of the community in planning and decisionmaking rather than in merely contributing labour (and/or money). Paul defines
community participation as "an active process by which beneficiary/client groups
influence the direction and execution of a development project with a view to
enhancing their well-being in terms of income, personal growth, self-reliance or
other values they cherish." (Paul, 1987, p. 2).
If people participate in planning and decision-making with regard to their
house and its direct environment, they can also decide if and if so, how much they
can and want to contribute to the project in terms of labour and money, and what
they expect to receive for their contribution. Once people have been involved in
the planning and decision-making for their houses and their neighbourhood, they
are more likely to be interested in the maintenance and management of their
neighbourhood, its infrastructure and services.
Consequently, the central element of community participation is participation
by the community in decisions which directly affect their living conditions. This
implies the sharing of power between the authorities and the community. Four
arguments have been advanced to explain the need for community participation
(UNCHS, 1983, p. 6).
a. Community participation is a right People have a right to participate in
decision-making which directly affects their living conditions. Community
participation is a form of grassroots democracy.
b. Community participation is a right, but participation in housing projects is
not the most important form of participation. It must be extended to all
spheres of life and must include the sharing of benefits of development.
Participation in housing is a learning process whereby the urban poor become
aware of their situation, build up self-confidence and understand their power
if they act in a concerted manner (Fernandez-White, 1983, pp. 25-26; Setty,
1985, p. 76).
c Community participation is a means to achieve better project results and
consequently better housing conditions for the community. Since people
themselves know best what they need, what they want and what they can
afford, only close cooperation between authorities and community can result
in projects which satisfy both the community and the authorities. The
objective of community participation is project effectiveness (Paul, op. tit,
P- 3).
d. Community participation is a means to facilitate project execution. If the
authorities prepare the community for the project and educate the people
about its means and objectives, the community will more easily comply with
the project and this will facilitate its implementation. The objective of
community participation is project efficiency (Ibid., p. 4).
Modes of Participating
In her article "A Ladder of Citizen Participation", Arnstein distinguished eight
forms of participation (Amstein, 1969, p. 217):
a. citizen control
of power is the classifier power is either with the people or the planners or is
shared by the two parties (Racelis, 1977, pp. 24-25):
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
No power sharing
Yes
Participation
Co-operation
No
Education
Manipulation
Partnership
making board (as a minority or majority), but are not considered equal to the
other members who retain the real power,
Only the first category is participation according to our definition. However,
through consultation a community can influence the direction of a project, while
communication and education can make it aware of its situation. If authorities do
not allow the community to participate in the decision-making and the community becomes aware that it is being ignored or manipulated, it may bypass the
project authorities and influence decision-making through politicians or bureaucrats at higher levels, with fatal results for the project.
The authorities may agree that a community must participate in project
decision-making, but practical forms of participation are not easy to devise. There
are no universally applicable guidelines for community participation in project
decision-making. The way a community participates depends on its socio-cultural
background, the political situation in the country and the design of the project
(Yap, 1987b, p. 80).
Moreover, the authorities may be willing to share decision-making powers
with community, but this is usually not enough to achieve community participation in decision-making. The community and the authorities are often internally
divided, with factions having different interests and degrees of power.
Social welfare departments employ social workers and community organizers, but
these lack the technical knowledge to assist communities in housing projects.
Moreover, cooperation between ministries is usually difficult.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are better staffed to do this work.
They are moreflexibleas they are not restricted in their activities to a particular
field of work like the mono-sectoral government agencies (Paul, 1987, p. 26;
Anzorena, 1980, p. 193). However, organizing the urban poor clearly has political
undertones. Many governments may not like the idea and see it as a subversive
activity. An NGO can only perform this function if it has a good relationship with
the public agency involved (Yap, 1987a, p. 3).
The existence of an organization does not guarantee that it represents the
entire community. The organization may be closely linked to the government or
the ruling party, and the population may not feel free to express its opinions. The
organization may represent certain (categories of) residents and exclude others.
House owners whose property (and its value) may be directly affected by the
project will be more motivated to participate in the organization than tenants who
are only temporary residents in the neighbourhood. Men tend to be overrepresented in such organizations although infrastructure and house improvements are more likely to affect the lives of the women.
Leadership
Community organizations need leaders, but in most urban low-income communities, the only persons who can afford to be active in a community organization are
the richer among the poor businessmen, shopkeepers, landlords who do not have
to worry all day about how to earn an income. Consequently, community leaders
are often not representative of the population but rather represent particular
interest groups (Anzorena, 1980, p. 187). Like organizations, leaders may compete
for followers in a community and refuse to work together for the neighbourhood.
To be effective, community leaders need training in such technical and social
skills as organizing communities, electing leadership, conducting meetings, understanding and explaining technical issues, decision-making, conflict resolution,
communication and financial management Here again NGOs are better
equipped and staffed than government agencies for this kind of work (Yap, 1987a,
p. 3).
Information
Participation in decision-making is only possible, if communication is established
between authorities and community so that the authorities receive information,
ideas and opinions from the community and the community has access to
information about the issues at stake. Community leaders can establish such
communication. However, the existence of an organization and community
leaders does not guarantee the sharing of information (Paul, op. cat., p. 26).
Information is a valuable good and can be monopolized by community leaders
and sold to their clients in exchange for votes or other services (Anzorena, op. a t ,
p. 187).
The contents and the form-of communication have to be adjusted to the
conditions of the population. This requires considerable skills of project support
communication (Perrett, 1982, p. 9). The following questions must be asked;
-
does the information reach the entire community and in the correct form?
does the community understand the information?
can the community take a decision on the basis of this information?
does the decision reflect the opinion of at least the majority of the population?
do the community opinions and decisions reach the authorities and in the
correct form?
Project Organization
Many participants in a project oppose community participation for their own
reasons.
Most authorities are reluctant to give power to people, as they fear that the
people may become too demanding and will start making demands in other fields
than housing. They see community organization and participation as a Pandora's
box. The authorities will try to restrict community participation to simple
decisions such as the location of a bus stop or a street light and the opening hours
of the clinic (Paul, op. cit, p. 25).
Politicians believe that they should represent communities as they have been
elected by popular vote and that there is no need for a community organization
and leadership outside parliament or the municipal council. Politicians may also
fear that grassroots leaders become their rivals in the next local or national
elections. It is important not to antagonize politicians and to respect their position
as overall political decision-makers. However, they have to be made aware that
planning and decision-making in the context of a housing project require the
direct involvement of the community (Boaden, 1980, pp. 39-41).
Technocrats believe that only they can take decisions on technical issues, as it
requires many years of study to be able to prepare plans for infrastructure, housing
etc. They consider it almost a personal insult to go to an illiterate, ignorant
community and ask for its opinion and advice. They often dearly show this when
Hwiling with communities. Their attitude is therapeutic or manipulative (in
Amstein's words) rather than participatory; or it is paternalistic and authoritarian.
Those responsible for project finances fear that community participation will
cost time and, therefore, money. Because one is dealing with people, a time
schedule for community participation is difficult to establish beforehand and the
outcome may eventually not be too different from what could have been expected.
However, the project authorities have to realize that, for instance, cost recovery is
almost impossible without prior community participation in planning and
decision-making.
Those who are in favour of and responsible for community participation often
do not know how to organize a community for participation in twhniml projects
such as squatter settlement upgrading and sites-and-services schemes (Anzorena,
op. cit., p. 190; Paul, op. cit., p. 13). Concrete modes of participation often need to
be developed within the context of a particular project as it is impossible to simply
transfer forms of participation from one project to another.
In some projects, the technical staff deals directly with the community. In other
projects, because of the lack of social skills among the technical staff, the contact
between the community and the staff is channelled through community relations
officers. They have to translate the messages of the technical staff into a language
understandable by the community and to translate the decisions of the community
into langauge understandable by the technical staff.
Although part of the project staff, community relations officers may identify
themselves with the community rather than with their colleagues and find
themselves in a rather awkward position in the project Their task is to organize
the community and to encourage it to participate in decision-making. The better
they perform this task, the more problems the technical staff will face trying to
meet community demands and technical requirements.
Conclusions
Without the involvement of the community in planning and decision-making,
a low-income housing project can not meet the needs and demands of the
community for improvement in an. effective and efficient way. As a result, plan
implementation and cost recovery will be difficult to achieve, and this will
jeopardize the rcplicability of the project However, real community participation
is not easy to achieve. It is difficult to organize community participation in
decision-making; there is resistance as well as ignorance among project staff and
there is a lack of participation by the community in the community organisation.
StiH community participation is an indispensable component of any low-income
housing project
Yap Kioe Sheng works at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand.
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