Participation, Negotiation and Poverty: Encountering the Power of Images : Designing Pro-Poor Development Programmes (King's Soas Studies in Development Geography)

The involvement of Non-Governmental Organizations, as actors within civil society, has profound value in development theory and practice. NGOs focus not only on the "eradication" of poverty, but also commit themselves to facilitation of the transformation of the structures and processes that constrain the poor. At the grassroots level, this agenda has largely been pursued through participatory practice and the channelling of extra resources using projects. The practicality of participation, however, has not adequately accommodated political realities that undermine the critical processes of "articulation", "decision-making" and "acting" that the poor go through (that is "agency"). Political realities of participation entail processes of negotiation that are influenced by images that people and NGOs form of each other, the resources involved, and the actual activities undertaken for development. These image-based negotiations underline the participatory relationships between communities and NGOs, and within communities, which if not properly managed put the poor at a disadvantage.