People-Centered Development

If you have come to help me you can go home again. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival then perhaps we can work together

Australian Aborigine Woman

Edited extracts from the Manila Declaration on People’s Participation and Sustainable Development (Phillipines 1989)

A people-centered development seeks to return control over resources to …people and their communities to be used in meeting their own needs. This creates incentives for the responsible stewardship of resources that is essential to sustainability.

Three principles are basic to a people-centered development:

	Sovereignty resides with … people, the real social actors of positive change. Freedom and democracy are universal human aspirations … The legitimate role of government is to enable … people to set and pursue their own agenda.
	To exercise their sovereignty and assume responsibility for the development of themselves and their communities, the people must control their own resources, have access to relevant information, and have the means to hold the officials of government accountable …Government must protect these rights. People from all countries must work together in solidarity to insure that governments accept and act on this responsibility.
	Those who would assist the people with their development must recognize that it is they who are participating in support of the people’s agenda, not the reverse. The value of the outsider’s contribution will be measured in terms of the enhanced capacity of the people to determine their own future.

Redefining Participation

Conventional practice too often has called for the participation of the community in donor or voluntary development organization defined agendas and projects.

Since sovereignty resides with the people, not with the state, development assistance must be responsive to the people. In authentic development an assisting agency is a participant in a development process that is community driven, community led and community owned – basic conditions for sustainability.

Strengthening People’s Capacity for Participation

People’s capacity for participation in the creation of sustainable communities must be strengthened through efforts to rapidly expand people’s organisation and awareness … It is important to recognise and build from existing organisations and make resources available. There must be use of mass media. Communities must be encouraged to strengthen self-organising processes and to support one another’s initiatives. Governments must be encouraged … in creating a policy environment for citizen action.

Building Inclusive Alliances

Alliances must be built across …sectors. It is important to recognise and work with natural allies within existing institutions, including government … and the financial institutions who share the vision or can be enlisted to the cause. Those who are working for internal reform can benefit from the pressures of citizen action. Care must be taken, however, to avoid co-optation, recognising that the objective requires the transformation, not simply the fine tuning, of inappropriate institutions.

Creating demonstrations of self-reliant communities

Simply organising people is not sufficient. The goal is the recreation of society from the bottom up on a foundation of productive, sustainable communities. There is need for large scale experimentation to demonstrate the creation of communities that exemplify sustainability, justice and inclusiveness. These must also demonstrate the potentials of small-scale community action on a replicable scale.

Source: David C Korten (1990) Getting to the 21^st Century – voluntary action and the global agenda; Bookmark, ISBN 971 569 005 X