One of the most commonly accepted definitions of participatory development is “Participatory development seeks to give the poor a part in initiatives and projects that are designed by outside organisations in the hopes that these projects will be more sustainable and successful by involving local stakeholders in the project’s goals”.
The concept of participatory development and communication has given rise to the thought that development initiatives following the top-down approach may not be as effective as it was always perceived to be in the past. This is particularly true in cases whereby understanding what the community requires is as important as filtering what is most essential for that time.
While we may think that the end goal of any development effort should never be the success or supposed sustainability of the project itself, but rather an increase in the community’s sovereignty and well-being. In some cases, the community may determine that the predefined, written goals of a project are no longer useful or valuable to the community, and if we are loyal and committed to truly participatory development, we need to allow for that possibility.
This is why the traditional approach of communication for rural development (RD) was greatly influenced by the dominant paradigm of development. The retort against this paradigm gave birth to the participatory approach of communication wherein the common people in rural areas were considered as the ‘subjects’ of development in conjunction with their active involvement. It is the era when alternative communication mediums like community radio (CR) was accepted as a tool of participatory RD in developing countries like India (Patil, 2019).
Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) is a framework that uses the strategies of advocacy, behaviour change communication (BCC) and community mobilisation to influence both individual and societal change. It uses a 360-degree approach that is focused not just on mass media but integrates mid-media and interpersonal communication. It systematically addresses the complex processes integral to planning, designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating effective communication.
Globally, there has been a paradigm shift in recent years from sporadic awareness-raising information, education, and communication (IEC) activities to strategic, evidence-based behaviour change communication (BCC) strategies. The change has come about with the realisation that as individual behaviour is influenced by socio-cultural and gender norms, the need to mobilise communities in support of recommended behaviours is imperative along with integrating advocacy to influence policy and structural issues, leading to increasingly holistic approaches to communication.
In India, communication has played a critical role in advancing health and development goals. Increased immunisation rates, contraception prevalence, and HIV-preventive behaviours are strong testimony to the power of communication. For instance, the need and intent to evolve from IEC to BCC is well reflected in landmark frameworks for the country’s Reproductive and Child Health Program and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
According to 1998 Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen, freedom is both the primary objective of development and the principal means of development. The human being is an engine of change. According to Sen, development is enhanced by democracy and the protection of human rights. Such rights, especially freedom of the press, speech, assembly, and so forth increase the likelihood of honest, clean, good government. He claims that “no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy”. This is because democratic governments “have to win elections and face public criticism and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes”. Development is the process of expanding human freedom. It is “the enhancement of freedoms that allow people to lead lives that they have reason to live”. Hence “development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systemic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states”. For Sen, “capability deprivation” is a better measure of poverty than low income.
Social and Behavioural Change Communication has been adopted widely in areas such as globalisation, gender, environment, sustainable development and human development. Development should not be simply associated with economic indicators or changes in economic standing. Poor people lack opportunities and choices, not just economic means. So, development policies should aim at improving individuals’ chances at various freedoms. Central to Sen’s model is that development requires individuals to help themselves. Rather than focusing on conventional indicators such as GDP or employment as a proxy for development, the analysis should assess whether individuals are responsible and capable of making choices.
Therefore, ways to improve human capital, such as education and training, are critical. Inculcating good ‘ethical’ behaviour among individuals is the main goal of social transformation. In other words, instead of simply giving the poor “apart” in development initiatives, we sustain that genuine participatory development seeks to allow the poor to determine their own visions and establish their own development priorities and agendas. The discrepancies between what is and is not participatory development can be further envisaged in the differing perspectives within the widely defined theme of participatory development.
The critical innovation in development studies was the rise of participatory theories. These approaches questioned developmentalism insofar as they offered a view of expert-led, top-down, externally imposed change. Instead, it proposed a notion of development as participation – citizens’ active engagement in public affairs to express opinions, conduct dialogue and identity needs and actions. The modernisation paradigm completely ignored the need to involve citizens as the true protagonist of development and favoured models based on knowledge accumulated by experts and leaders.
Development as participation demands maximising opportunities for people to express their voices and deploy their knowledge and skills. Decentralisation, local knowledge, empowerment and human rights are critical notions that need to be prioritised by development actions. This is true in the context of introducing change and development in the context of the tribals and or tribal regions. No project of social change can ignore the multiplicity of the human experience or deny the importance of local knowledge and sovereignty in the process by which communities outline goals and activities. If self-determination is put at the centre of human development, then, it is necessary to revisit the premises of modernisation.
Along similar lines, Risk Communication and Community Engagement initiative during the pandemic has shown tremendous responses and involvement of stakeholders across age groups. During public health emergencies, people need to know what health risks they face, and what actions they can take to protect their health and lives. Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) is about accurate information provided early, often and in languages and channels that people understand, trust and use. It enables individuals and communities to make choices and take actions to protect themselves, their families and communities from life-threatening health hazards.
Key participant groups in one of the RCCE interventions for example consist of individuals across states. Primary (targeted through message dissemination, engagement and feedback gathering): Community members of all age groups (urban and rural), slum dwellers, migrant population, underserved communities, elderly population, people with disabilities, children, adolescents, vulnerable age groups (24 to 45 years and 60 plus). Diverse multimedia products designed for dissemination a wide array of media were used for Covid-specific message dissemination – print, radio, television, community radio, digital, social media and messaging through apps such as WhatsApp and SMS. Posters, signage, billboards, wall slogans, hoardings, etc explaining the concept of physical spacing as per the context – urban spaces, rural spaces, crowded spaces, slums – were designed.
There is a paradigm shift in the earlier dominant approach of communication. It has moved from merely using media to inform and aware rural masses to engaging the beneficiaries in the communication process not as receiver but producer of the content itself. A participatory paradigm has been instrumented in successfully reaching out to the marginalised communities and assisting in their development at the village level.
The participatory bottom-up approach of community media has proved significant marks, as corroborated by the evidence. The participatory communication approach has also justified that there is a need to change the development process upside down. It also necessitates that an interactive, participatory tool like community radio engaging the rural masses which encourages them to participate in their own socio-economic developmental subjects more conveniently where government system must function as a facilitator. (The writer can be reached at maxwell.lyngdoh@gmail.com)
