Participatory Research Methods: Importance and Limitations of Participation in Development Practice

Abstract

Since more than four decades ago, the need to adopt participatory approaches in development planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation has increased exponentially. More precisely, there has been a demand by both state and non-state actors to undertake development interventions using both top-down and bottom-up approaches to promote a balanced participation and empowerment of various stakeholders including the marginalised poor. This article espouses the importance and limitations of participation in development practice. In order to achieve that objective, the study takes a critical consideration of participatory research methods. The case made herein is that 'participation' is crucial for any development process-it increases efficiency and sustainability of interventions; leads to empowerment; enhances achievement of development goals; and it also transforms the development actors' paradigms. Conversely, the study also argues that participation inasmuch as it possesses clear benefits and empowering effects, it is without disadvantages. Some contentious viewpoints are that participation lacks proof to cause empowerment and sustainability; it fails to resolve the power relations problem; and that it only works well with small projects while another view is that PRA tools are usually over praised. Regardless, this study recommends that i) participation should be considered as a strong alternative to development; ii) participation must draw its boundaries clearly; and iii) participation should also be taken as a catalyst for knowledge and skills transfer.

Full text

World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2022, Vol. 8, No. 1, 9-13
Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/wjssh/8/1/2
Published by Science and Education Publishing
DOI:10.12691/wjssh-8-1-2
Participatory Research Methods: Importance and
Limitations of Participation in Development Practice
Vincent Kanyamuna1,*, Kangacepe Zulu2
1School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Development Studies, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia
2University of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England
*Corresponding author:
Received November 13, 2021; Revised December 19, 2021; Accepted December 27, 2021
Abstract Since more than four decades ago, the need to adopt participatory approaches in development planning,
budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation has increased exponentially. More precisely, there has been a
demand by both state and non-state actors to undertake development interventions using both top-down and bottom-
up approaches to promote a balanced participation and empowerment of various stakeholders including the
marginalised poor. This article espouses the importance and limitations of participation in development practice. In
order to achieve that objective, the study takes a critical consideration of participatory research methods. The case
made herein is that ‘participation’ is crucial for any development process—it increases efficiency and sustainability
of interventions; leads to empowerment; enhances achievement of development goals; and it also transforms the
development actors’ paradigms. Conversely, the study also argues that participation inasmuch as it possesses clear
benefits and empowering effects, it is without disadvantages. Some contentious viewpoints are that participation
lacks proof to cause empowerment and sustainability; it fails to resolve the power relations problem; and that it only
works well with small projects while another view is that PRA tools are usually over praised. Regardless, this study
recommends that i) participation should be considered as a strong alternative to development; ii) participation must
draw its boundaries clearly; and iii) participation should also be taken as a catalyst for knowledge and skills transfer.
Keywords: participation, participatory methods, evaluation, monitoring, research, development, PRA, Zambia
Cite This Article: Vincent Kanyamuna, and Kangacepe Zulu, “Participatory Research Methods: Importance
and Limitations of Participation in Development Practice.” World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, vol.
8, no. 1 (2022): 9-13. doi: 10.12691/wjssh-8-1-2.
1. Introduction
Participation has become a ‘resounding’ word in the
development world today. With increasing inadequacies
for governments and agencies to provide desired
development to the people, particularly the poor and
marginalized, participatory approaches have been
advocated for and considered suitable vehicles for pro-
poor development and poverty reduction. Over the years,
many methods and tools such as the Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA) have been developed to enhance
people’s participation in development practice.
The aim of this study was to discuss the importance and
limitations of participation in development practice. The
paper is divided into five parts. Firstly, a brief historical
perspective of the concept of participation is discussed.
The second part will discuss PRA as a set of tools used to
enhance participatory processes and thirdly, the core
arguments made in support of the importance of
participation are discussed. Part four highlights critical
limitations of participation in development practice and
lastly, we provide personal recommendations and
conclusion.
2. Historical Perspective of Participation
Since the late 1970s, there has been a range of
definitions for participation. [1] says, “participation [….)
refers to an empowering process that enables people to
take command and do things themselves” while the [2]
sees participation as “a process through which
stakeholders influence and share control over development
initiatives and the decisions and resources which affect
them”.
The main goal of development is to improve the quality
of life for people, particularly for the poor and
marginalized in society. For over 50 years now, literature
records that participation was already an issue in the early
initiatives of development assistance to undeveloped
countries. As years went by, the need to involve local
people in efforts to improve community development was
sought.
Since then, there have been a number of shifts in
perspectives with regard to how participation was to be
implemented. According to [3,4,5,6,7], community
development in the 1960s built the infrastructure of rural
and urban communities. It developed local skills and

10 World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
abilities and encouraged local people to play a part in and
take some responsibility for supporting and implementing
a range of physical infrastructure works.
Nevertheless, while community development as a basic
strategy of community involvement persisted in the 1970s,
another need to shift focus began to emerge. Changing
analyses and examinations of underdevelopment in the
late 1970s and 1980s by scholars and practitioners
accelerated the demand for a new way of looking at
participation. This led to a call for people’s participation
in development projects. From the 1990s onwards,
participation became a worldwide phenomenon in most
development interventions.
3. Participatory Rural Appraisal as Tool
for Participation
PRA methods, according to [8] Chambers include,
“mapping and modeling, transect walks, matrix scoring,
well-being grouping and ranking, seasonal calendars,
institutional diagramming, trend and change analysis, and
analytical diagramming, all undertaken by local people.
Among many applications, PRA has been used in natural
resources management (soil and water conservation,
forestry, fisheries, wildlife, village planning, etc)
agriculture, health, nutrition, food security and programs
for the poor”.
Before being called PRA, [8,9] explains that it was
initially known as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) in
reaction to the lengthy and expensive survey research.
However, in the mid 1980s, RRA made way for PRA
which is acclaimed to be empowering, a process of
appraisal, analysis and action by local people themselves.
When working with PRA, the researcher or outsider hands
over the stick and takes the role of facilitator and convener
and assumes the role of a catalyst to enable people
undertake and share their own investigations and analysis.
PRA is a source of useful information for institutions like
governments, NGOs and other development agencies with
its principles revolving around continuous and open ended
learning.
4. The Importance of Participation
Expressing the importance attached to participation, [10]
reveal that “the World Bank has allocated close to US$80
billion to participatory development projects at the local
level over the last decade. Other development agencies –
bilateral donors and regional development banks,
have, in all probably, spent at least as much as have the
governments of most developing countries”. Further, in
his 1998 annual meeting speech as president of the World
Bank, James D. Wolfensohn remarked; “participation
matters - not only as a means of improving development
effectiveness, as we know from our recent studies, but as
the key to long-term sustainability and leverage. We must
never stop reminding ourselves that it is up to the
government and its people to decide what their priorities
should be. We must never stop reminding ourselves that
we cannot and should not impose development by fiat
from above, or from abroad” [11,12].
4.1. Participation Increases Efficiency and
Sustainability
The participation of community members is assumed to
contribute to enhanced efficiency and effectiveness in
development implementation. [13,14] when reviewing
World Bank studies found that investments in
participation tended to pay off in terms of increased
efficiency and sustainability of development interventions.
Equally, after using participatory methods in the
development work of the SPEECH project in India, [15]
observed that “in Kottam district, participation had
engendered a sense of ownership over both participatory
processes and PRA tools, which had given community
members the skills and confidence to use PRA after
SPEECH withdrew”.
4.2. Participation Leads to Empowerment
Some proponents of participatory development argue
that participation is both a means and an end and promotes
processes of democratization and empowerment. [16]
states; “participation is empowering and enables local
people to do their own analysis, to take commend, to gain
confidence, and to make their own decisions”. Similarly,
[12] notes that “in the broadest sense, participation may be
thought of as an instrument of empowerment, where
development should lead to an equitable sharing of power
and to a higher level of people’s, in particular the weaker
groups’, political awareness and strengths. Any project or
development activity is then a means of empowering
people so that they are able to initiate actions on their own
and thus influence the processes and outcomes of
development”.
4.3. Participation Enhances Achievement of
Development Goals
Through participation, various communities around the
world and particularly in developing countries have managed
to initiate, implement and improve their livelihoods. [10]
hold a view that local participation has become the means
to achieve a variety of goals such as poverty targeting,
improved public service delivery, better maintained
infrastructure, greater voice and social cohesion and
strengthening accountability in government. Further, [17]
review that “studies of agricultural development show that
participatory platforms such as farmer field schools and
farmer research teams not only support a wide range of
production outcomes but also point to broad socio-
economic benefits, including empowerment”.
4.4. Participation Transforms the
Development Actors’ Paradigms
The process of participation can cause paradigm shifts
among its users. An Indian project staff remarked; “PRA
enabled us as project staff to see ourselves differently, and
place our partners (community) at the centre. It helped us
to recognize their analytical abilities, and their expertise
and coping mechanisms. We realized that we did not
understand the depth of the problems or their root causes.
In our context, PRA helped the people become the masters

World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 11
of their own development” [15]. In this case, participation
creates spaces of innovative development for people.
5. Limitations of Participation
There has been increasing demand for participation in
development action for many years. However, the support
for participation has not gone without criticism. Some
scholars and development practitioners have argued that
those who support and advocate for participation have not
been critical, thus, creating unnecessary and practically
oriented challenges in implementing the participatory
approach. [18,19] observes that “participation has
therefore become an act of faith in development,
something we believe in and rarely question. This act of
faith is based on three main tenets: that participation is
intrinsically a ‘good thing’; that a focus on ‘getting the
techniques right’ is the principal way of ensuring the
success of such approaches; and that considerations of
power and politics on the whole should be avoided as
divisive and obstructive”.
5.1. Participation Lacks Proof to Cause
Empowerment and Sustainability
The argument that the engagement of the poor in
development activities would result into empowerment
and sustainability of projects has been contended. In
essence, most evaluations do not find strong support for
empowerment and sustainability of development
interventions on the part of the poor and marginalized.
Therefore, it becomes difficult to claim and prove that
participation lead to empowerment and sustainable
development. [18] argues that, “it is often unclear exactly
‘who’ is to be empowered, is it the individual, the
‘community’ or categories of people such as ‘women’, the
‘poor’ or the ‘socially excluded’. The scope of and
limitations on the empowering effects of any project are
little explored; the attribution of causality and impact
within the project alone is problematic”.
5.2. Participation Fails to Resolve the Power
Relations Problem
[14] suggests that questions of power relations must be
taken seriously in participatory processes because neither
are they systematic, totalizing and irresistible in the sense
expressed by some of participation’s detractors. The
process of participation fails to address conflicting
interests that occur between and among the researchers,
the poor, and development agencies. Although different
PRA methods are used in attempt to resolve such matters,
there is no agreement. In fact, different factors such as
culture, social status and religious inclinations influence
the attitudes and behaviors of the participants in both
private and public domains. [10] argue that without firm
inducement to make everyone participate, a few wealthy
and politically connected and usually men will always
lead in making important decisions in community
meetings at the expense of the poor.
There are further problems with PRA processes that
even undermine the community. [19], observe that
“people’s knowledge is also used to advance and
legitimize the project’s own development agenda, or even
to negotiate its participatory approach with other
stakeholders such as funders, technical consultants, and
senior management. The fact that PRA information has
been set as a new scientific standard by donor and other
agencies does not, in itself, democratize power in
programme decision-making. Participatory approaches
and methods also serve to represent external interests as
local needs, dominant interests as community concerns,
and so forth”.
5.3. Participation Works Well with Small
Projects
Whenever participation is discussed, it is mainly with
reference to small scale development projects for the rural
and urban poor in sectors such as agriculture, natural
resources management, micro credit, education and health
management at local levels. [20] notes that “in discourses
around sustainable rural development, participation has
become a widely advocated methodological principle for
intervention practice, and a range of participatory
methodologies and techniques have been proposed in
order to operationalize it”. This is a crucial weakness
because the problems that affect communities are in many
ways of bigger magnitudes. To have improved standards
of living, communities need transformed systems in road
and transport, national electricity grids, national policies,
and other capital programs. The engagement of the poor is
not practical at these levels. In many cases, the poor lack
special skills and expertise to deliberate in such programs.
5.4. PRA Tools are usually over Praised
There is general consideration in the development arena
that PRA tools are indeed useful instruments for
development action, but many times, it seems they are
overrated. [21,26] argue that one obvious problem is the
tendency to essentialise and romanticize PRA. As
development agencies enter communities to facilitate
programs, they seemingly hold a notion that the members
of the community are equal and living in harmony which
is not the case. [18,22,27,28] point out that some
development practitioners excel in perpetuating the myth
that members of the community through PRA tools can
achieve everything and assert that the missing link is
mobilizing them before their latent capacities are
unleashed in the interests of development.
6. Recommendations
In spite of the many limitations argued against the
participatory approaches, practitioners and scholars alike,
need to continue to work together and unpack the concept
for the benefit of the fight against world poverty.
6.1. Participation as an Alternative to
Development
Participation should not be expected to solve all the
development problems. As [13,20,21,23,24] states, “there

12 World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
are many kinds of participation, not all of them relevant or
effective for all tasks. It makes no sense to think in terms
of achieving maximum participation, since participating in
decision-making or implementation, for instance, entails
costs as well as benefits”. Essentially, development is a
multidimensional phenomenon and will always require a
multifaceted approach to effectively tackle it.
Over the years, the participation paradigm has become
a new science of investigating poverty and development.
Therefore, both the proponents and critics of participation
should in the first place accept that like any other
development approach, participation has a part to play.
This is despite its likely limitations. If participation works
well with small projects for instance, it should be
employed and maximized. Nevertheless, there is need to
harmonize the various opportunities and technical
limitations faced in its current applications.
6.2. Participation must Draw Its Boundaries
Clearly
Many critics have raised important arguments that
participatory development lacks credibility and that in
most cases has nothing to point at as its own success. For
instance, strong criticism is made around the claims that
participation leads to empowerment of the poor,
sustainability and that it resolves the power-relation
problems at community level. These are very difficult
aspects of development to measure given the dynamics of
the development arena and the nature of human action. So,
in as much as participation may be considered as crucial,
it may be practical for users of this approach to accept this
complexity. Thus, setting clear boundaries regarding what
can be and what cannot be achieved with participation is
going to be important and increase validity claims.
6.3. Participation as Catalyst for Knowledge
and Skills Transfer
Since participation is a process of engaging, negotiating,
consulting, tolerating, and learning, it is important that
both the community and the development agencies
or researchers take an open approach. This means
stakeholders should keep an attitude of desiring to learn
from each other as they move towards attaining specific
development objectives. The benefits become two-way in
this regard. [25] state that “the local people must be
considered as the site of empowerment and hence
as a locus of knowledge generation and development
intervention”.
7. Conclusion
This essay has shown the different arguments put
forward for and against participation in development
practice. Taking it for what it is, the participatory
approach can yield positive gains through information
generated from it and used to inform policy-making and
management of development interventions including
projects, programmes and policies.
Finally, PRA has been described as a set of instruments
for development with great potential for the poor and
marginalized communities to tackle poverty. However,
those involved in development debates and practice
should shape it and make it a better tool for development
action. Care should be taken not to use and abuse PRA to
serve the needs of outsiders, such as the government or
consultants. In addition, participants should also be careful
not to get carried away and ignore its pitfalls. PRA’s
potential and pitfalls should be thoroughly analyzed
and managed. Otherwise, participation is important in
development practice.
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