\u201cA basic needs-oriented policy implies the participation of the people in making the decisions which affect them through organizations of their own choice.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Marshall Wolfe of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) defines participation as \u201cthe organized efforts to increase control over resources and regulative institutions in given social situations, on the part of groups and movements often excluded from such control.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the intellectual \u201cfathers\u201d of popular participation is Ivan Illich and the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire (19 Sep 1921 – 2 May 1997) (l). Illich urged the ‘deprofessionalization’ in all domains of life \u2212 schooling, health care, planning \u2212 in order to make \u2018ordinary people’ responsible for their own well-being.\u00a0 The strongest affirmation of the superior value of participation over elite decision-making comes from Freire who held that the touchstone of development is whether people who were previously treated as mere objects and acted upon can become subjects of their own social destiny. When people are oppressed or reduced to the culture of silence, they do not participate in their own humanization.<\/p>\n Paulo Freire’s work is available online. Conversely, when they participate, thereby becoming active subjects of action, they begin to construct their properly human history, and engage in processes of authentic development.\u00a0 Paulo Freire stresses this inclusion of the marginalized in his discussion of agricultural extension efforts.\u00a0 The ideal to be sought in agricultural extension is true communication or reciprocal dialogue not the mere issuance of information by expert agronomists to peasants or farmers.<\/p>\n ‘Participation’ is a term that is often used in three different ways.\u00a0 It is sometimes used as in much agricultural extension activities as induced from above by some authorities who usually seek some social control over the process.\u00a0 Such State-promoted participation usually aims at getting people to produce more effectively.\u00a0 This is not popular participation in the sense that the Basic Needs Approach uses the term ‘participation’ although in practice State cooperation is usually needed.<\/p>\n ‘Participation’ in the Basic-Needs \u2013 inclusion of the marginalized sense \u2013 springs from below during a crisis and in response to some threat to a community’s values or survival.\u00a0 Often with no prior plan or precedent, some hitherto passive group mobilizes itself to protest, to resist, to say \u201cNo\u201d.\u00a0 As the world citizen Albert Camus wrote,<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cAny oppressed group’s refusal to accept its conditions is always the latent bearer of all affirmations of possible new orders.\u00a0 To say \u201cno\u201d is to open up possibilities for saying \u201cyes\u201d in a multitude of ways.\u00a0 Those who begin by saying \u201cNo\u201d to their oppressors soon feel the need to utter some \u201cYes\u201d of their own.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Popular participation usually follows a sequence of steps:<\/p>\n If participation is to influence decision-making at a level where it makes a difference in national development, there is a necessary transition from the micro, local area to the macro, national planning dimension.\u00a0 A Basic Needs Approach provides an opportunity for previously powerless communities to enter into national development thinking.\u00a0 Participation can fruitfully be understood as a moral incentive enabling hitherto excluded groups to negotiate new packages of material incentives in areas such as food, housing and access to education.<\/p>\n Participation \u2212 an active role by intended beneficiaries \u2212 is an indispensable feature of the Basic Needs Approach to Development Planning.<\/p>\n NOTE:<\/strong><\/p>\n ______________________________________<\/p>\n In the Declaration of Principles and Programme of Action adopted by the 1976 World Employment Conference it is stated, \u201cA basic needs-oriented policy implies the participation of the people in making the decisions which affect them through organizations of their own choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":55686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[258,642,2129,2130],"class_list":["post-167832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-education","tag-literature","tag-paulo-freire","tag-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/paulo-freire-obra1.jpg\")
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(Foto: Reprodu\u00e7\u00e3o)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Participation’ in the Basic Needs Approach can also be used to define the catalytic action of third party change agents \u2212 technicians, community organizers, missionaries or members of a specialized NGO. Most such change agents view self-reliance of the poor and marginalized as a desirable goal.\u00a0 Accordingly, they see their own activation of the marginalized as ‘facilitation’ destined to disappear after the people awaken to their dormant capacities to decide and act for themselves.<\/p>\n\n
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\n– Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1983)
\n– For Paulo Freire see: Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970)
\n– Paulo Freire. Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Seabury Press, 1973)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/a><\/em>Ren\u00e9 Wadlow is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/em>. He <\/em>is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of <\/em>Transnational Perspectives. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"