Demystifying Facilitation in Participatory Development

Abstract

"Blueprint approaches to development have little ability to build capacities for sustainable natural resource management and food production. An emerging alternative response for democratic societies is collective action of multiple actors at multiple scales. Participatory methodologies have evolved to develop competence in joint decision-making, action and reflection. However, despite promising results, we are still not very good at incorporating multiple actor learning at multiple scales into participatory interventions. The importance of facilitation in this regard is increasingly acknowledged. However, little has been written to guide facilitators on the qualities needed and theories surrounding its actual practice. Based on their own facilitation experience, the authors aim to make facilitation and the role of the facilitator more transparent by highlighting three different aspects of participatory interventions: 1. The reasons for the participatory intervention; 2. The range of stakeholders involved; 3. The style of facilitation. For each of these three choices, a number of options and their consequences for facilitation of the learning process and its outcome are presented."