PUPLIC
PARTICIPATION
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND PARTICIPATORY PROCESSES
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WHAT
IS PUBLIC PARTICIPATION?
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DIFFERENT
WAYS
TO INVOLVE THE PUBLIC
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ROUND TABLES IN CANADA
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USING
ROUND TABLES IN THE TRANSPORTATION SECTOR IN POLAND
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URBAN
GREENING. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN
BANGKOK
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ENLISTING THE PUBLIC TO
CLEAN UP CITIES
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EMPOWERMENT AND PUPLIC PARTICIPATION
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ICSC'S
ROLE AS A BROKER
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ICSC'S
CANADIAN TEAM-
PUPLIC PARTICIPATION AND MULTI-PARTY PROCESSES
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EMPOWERMENT AND PUPLIC PARTICIPATION
Nola-Kate Seymoar, Ph.D.
Introduction
There is a tendency to confuse public participation with community
empowerment. Partly this confusion is caused by the continuum
of activities included under the phrase "public participation",
activities ranging from disseminating information, through consultations,
workshops and collaborative mechanisms, to empowerment - or the
sharing of decision-making. Public participation professionals
are often involved in assisting groups in developing countries
to learn the skills and technologies of participatory processes
as part of the capacity building activities of various aid projects.
Parallel to these activities, there is a long tradition within
the community development field of empowerment activities based
on the work of community organizers such as Saul Alinsky and Paulo
Friere. In the environmental, women's, and indigenous peoples
movements, empowerment has a long history of association with
consciousness raising activities, assertiveness training, advocacy,
affirmative action and legal/human rights challenges. Yet another
group of professionals involved in the empowerment game are the
mediators and conflict resolution professionals, who often come
into the middle of disputes between those with power and those
without it.
This paper is an attempt to build a conceptual framework
to clarify the activities or interventions appropriate to empowerment
and to distinguish them from those appropriate to public participation.
Empowerment
Empowerment means sharing power as equals. One cannot empower
someone else. Although one may offer to share power or decision-making,
the other party must stand as an equal and have the desire, skills
and legal mandate to share that power. Most situations of shared
power go unnoticed. They are situations where groups partner with
one another for a common goal. Some partnerships however, are
particularly notable because they go across sectors, borders,
disciplines or cultures. One outstanding example of shared power
was the government and civil sector coalition to ban anti-personnel
landmines. The "Ottawa Process" as it became known,
was characterized by high levels of participation by thousands
of non-government organizations from around the world and demonstrated
the impact of middle power countries who were prepared to act
together. It is a testament to the government leaders, the officials
and the NGO coalition that they were able to negotiate an international
treaty in a shorter time than had ever been done before. The awarding
of the Nobel Peace Prize to Jody Powell and the Coalition highlighted
the success of the efforts. The lessons from that experience were
reviewed by the Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development.
See reports on their “New Diplomacy” efforts at www.cpf-pec.gc.ca.
This example stands out because it involved governments
in making a conscious choice to share some of their power in decision
making. There is no question that the ultimate decisions rested
with the governments - no one could sign the international treaty
except national governments. But in these and some other cases,
governments realize that they require other partners in order
to be able to implement certain kinds of decisions. NGOs who become
involved in such fora, often want to expand the scope of their
influence to tackle other similar problems. In the field of sustainable
development, multi-sectoral Sustainable Development Councils and
Round Tables are part of the post-Rio legacy. Only a few involve
shared power and decision-making. Most are advisory in nature.
There is another type of empowerment that goes on
in the field of international and community development. It is
the self empowerment of groups, often won through political and
economic struggles. This process is very different than the "Ottawa
Process" or the Round Table process. It is characterized
by different activities and results at different times.
In the 60s and early 70s, popular movements for
the environment, women and indigenous peoples developed in North
America and Europe. The movements had much in common. They all
viewed power as characteristically held by those with access to
capital (including land), financial resources, governance institutions
- including political and legal structures (and their enforcement
agencies - the military and police), educational structures, and
the media. Activists worked with groups lacking in power to assist
them in obtaining greater power. Although frequently the activists
were themselves from the educated, white, middle class, many were
able to effectively empathize and mobilize the poor or the disenfranchised.
Local or indigenous leaders emerged quickly in all of these movements.
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