Involving the Opposition

Involving the Opposition

Communication for Participatory Approach and Transparency to Development Actions and Policies

Sometimes collaboration among different stakeholders may not be possible, however. In these cases, either resources should not be committed to the proposed activity or a group of stakeholders may have to be left out, generally by modifying the concern being addressed. Stakeholder conflict is often produced by the external expert stance.

When external experts formulate a complete, fully developed proposal and present it to the people it affects, immense room exists for misunderstanding on the part of those who were not involved in preparing the proposal.

In the the India Health and Family Welfare Sector Study (world bakn programme) Health and Family Welfare Sector Study, NGOs invited to a forum with government unanimously rejected a preset agenda and action plan. They perceived the plan as a fait accompli and their participation in the workshop as a token gesture of collaboration. Instead, they wanted to start from scratch and come up with their own workshop agenda and action plan. The sponsors agreed to this request, and both NGOs and government broke up into small, mixed groups to devise a new action plan. This plan was adopted during a plenary session and was inorganizationald into the final report.

Starting Early and Broadly

In most instances, fully developed proposals are really "take-it-or-leave-it" propositions, no matter how much lip service is paid afterward to collaborative decisionmaking. After sponsors and designers spend millions of dollars and many years preparing a complete plan, they are not likely to be open to significant changes. For those who perceive a loss for themselves in the proposal, outright opposition may appear to be the only possible stance; the greater the loss, the stronger the opposition is likely to be. As we know from sometimes bitter experience, once opposition mobilizes, it is difficult-if not impossible-to resolve the matter

When all stakeholders collaborate in designing their collective future, it increases the chances of former differences being resolved and a new consensus emerging around issues everyone can agree on. This is probably so because people who have to live and work together can often find ways to agree if given the chance. Unfortunately, people do not often get the chance to work together to determine their collective future. Development projects prepared in the external expert stance do not provide that chance. The participatory process, however, facilitates working together. So participation can be a "conflict avoidance" process to the degree that it helps stakeholders with different interests explore and potentially find common interests.

Finding Common Ground

In the India Forestry example, the foresters were shooting at the local people who were starting to shoot back before the participatory planning began. By focusing on common interests-how to protect the forests while ensuring economic survival for local people-the West Bengal Forestry Project eventually resulted in sustainable collaborative action. Through nine months of repeated dialogue and negotiations between the foresters and the local people, the forest dwellers agreed to take care of the shoots thrown up by Sal stumps so that they would become salable poles. When the poles were harvested, the forest dwellers got the culls, plus 25 percent of the revenues from the sale of good poles. The Sal stump growth subsequently became the main agent of reforestation, leading the foresters to proudly show off "their" forests. Despite the success stories, consensus will sometimes be unattainable and no basis will exist for future action, especially in situations with a long history of entrenched conflict and divisiveness among the parties. In such cases, the result is no action, which is probably better than action that will fall apart during implementation for want of consensus. Although this strategy may not always lead to a Bank loan, it will, we believe, lead to making those loans that have a reasonably high probability of producing what they promise, that is, being implementable and sustainable. This point applies equally to the government and the Bank.

Dealing with Deadlock

lternatively, when strong opposition exists to a project from one set of stakeholders, a Task Manager may, in certain circumstances, proceed by leaving out that set of opposition stakeholders and working with the others. Employing this approach has many potential dangers, but it does happen from time to time and has worked. In the Philippines Integrated Protected Areas example, the decision to drop the entire island of Mindoro from the proposed national parks system was taken once it was clear that the local residents were unwilling to support such an initiative. Nevertheless, the project as a whole proceeded. The Task Manager felt that this outcome-however unexpected-was ultimately in the best interests of both the government and the Bank. The lack of commitment from the people of Mindoro would have made implementation difficult and sustainability improbable. In this case, the participatory process saved the sponsors from committing scarce resources to a project component that would have performed poorly.