Participatory planning for sustainability

Abstract

The motive of this study lies on the recognition that project planning has become a vehicle for social change in many development interventions. Around the world, public sector managers, private consultants, and the staff on the non-governmental organizations are increasingly called upon to plan, manage, and ensure that those interventions are sustainable in the long-run. However, criticisms of the way international assistance agencies and developing countries plan and implement projects show that little attention is given to issue of project sustainability. This failure to incorporate sustainabiliity as critical element in development interventions has raised much debate in development field. Despite controversy about the meaning and means of achieving sustainability, it has been widely accepted that early involvement of local participants in planning would produce better results.

This study depicts a framework of project sustainability for those involved in the development interventions to take into consideration while planning, monitoring, and implementing rural development projects and argues the need for a more "careful" planning that incorporates intended participants in the planning and implementing process as well as concerns for socio-cultural aspects of project environment. However, it is important to note that this framework has to be adaptive to specific context of each project environment and responsive to the differences in local needs and conditions.