Though many studies have been conducted and frameworks published around planning and executing an effective participatory process, there is still no one-size-fits-all solution that can be followed. Creating an ideal process depends on many factors and would vary from case to case, mostly depending on the local setting. Some of these frameworks have been developed for the Government agencies to conduct these processes while some have been developed to effectively engage the citizens during processes.
The guidelines and the framework mentioned below are designed from the perspective of civic tech actors coming together with grassroots CSOs to conduct a participatory activity leading to artifacts and a set of recommendations for the public sector to adopt.
The first step of the process is to understand the problem that needs to be addressed. Different kinds of problems or challenges call for different solution responses. Understanding the right problem will lead to the right solution ensuring that the pain points are solved.
Once the list of problems or challenges has been identified, the next step is to identify the actual purpose of conducting the activity. Complexities of these challenges need to be understood to decide WHAT is to be assessed. Having clear objectives will help in determining the expected outcomes of the activity. This will also lead to the development of evaluation criteria which can be used to measure the effectiveness and success of the activity.
The participatory process needs to be designed with all the stakeholders, keeping the objectives and context in mind. All the key stakeholders should be involved across the steps or phases of a participatory process including people giving input, people being affected, people who will be taking action and the ones supporting the cause. Specific stakeholders may be involved in different ways at different steps or phases of the process. Identifying the appropriate stakeholders and how to involve them are questions that process designers must answer. The objectives of the activity can also help identify the role and the nature of engagement of stakeholders. E.g: validating a problem and its potential solution might involve people who are directly affected by the problem while finding out the feasibility of the potential solution might require subject matter experts or policymakers. This phase would also include collaborating with other organizations and subject matter experts to capitalize on each other's strengths to plan the process leading to the right solution. This also involves seeking out unheard voices and creating safe spaces that allow them to be heard. People often have the least say in decisions about their lives that are most affected by using the methods. A good way to identify some of the stakeholders is to answer the questions below:
Participatory processes enable complex interactions between contexts, grassroots aspirations and strategies, institutional structures, and enterprise interventions. The parties involved in planning and executing similar activities must ensure that these processes fit the context in which they are taking place. The general context can include broad social, demographic, political, technological, physical, and other features and trends in an organization’s environment. Whereas the specific context can refer to those parts of the organization’s task environment that are directly relevant to the achievement of the organization’s goals, including key stakeholders, applicable mandates, resource availability, and so on. Evaluating the right fit The next step is to evaluate whether conducting a participatory process can help solve a specific problem or add value that leads to the potential solution. In many cases where only quantitative feedback is required, there is a chance that conducting a simple survey might be a better alternative e.g: finding out the number of Covid-19 cases or the number of street lights installed on a particular street. On the other hand, a participatory process should be preferred if the expected output of activity is qualitative or a mix of both qualitative and quantitative e.g: how to control the after-effects of a pandemic or how can the lighting of a street be improved? In general, participation should be sought when it is required or when it is the only or most efficacious way of gaining one or more of the following: needed information, political support, legitimacy, or citizenship development.
The next step is to evaluate whether conducting a participatory process can help solve a specific problem or add value that leads to the potential solution. In many cases where only quantitative feedback is required, there is a chance that conducting a simple survey might be a better alternative e.g: finding out the number of Covid-19 cases or the number of street lights installed on a particular street. On the other hand, a participatory process should be preferred if the expected output of activity is qualitative or a mix of both qualitative and quantitative e.g: how to control the after-effects of a pandemic or how can the lighting of a street be improved? In general, participation should be sought when it is required or when it is the only or most efficacious way of gaining one or more of the following: needed information, political support, legitimacy, or citizenship development.
The stakeholder analysis provides an overview of all persons and interest groups, public and private agencies, and institutions who may have an interest in the planning or policy formulation process. It describes their interests and expectations. The following procedure may be followed to carry out the analysis:
Before you set out to engage your stakeholders, you need to determine the nature and form of their engagement. The engagement is generally divided into two major categories:
Generally these types of engagements are more appropriate where you need to gather information from a large number of stakeholders, sometimes present in a geographically distributed setting. Since the purpose normally relates to overall planning and policy development and is thereby very broad in scope. The form of engagement in this case is mostly through surveys mediated through the internet but can also be through websites and referendums.
This kind of engagement is considered when you are working at a lower spatial level with the stakeholders being community members or a part of an organization where a face-to-face working environment is possible. The broad purpose of participation at this level primarily relates to the implementation of development activities and delivery of services at the community level. They involve more functional and interactive forms of participation like direct community participation through joint working committees, workshops, and roundtable discussions, etc.
During this phase, a range of options are presented and evaluated by all the stakeholders before making a decision. Initially, a wide range of options are considered and are then narrowed down to the most appropriate one based on its advantages over others. Purpose of the participation, number of stakeholders, nature of engagement, technical and financial barriers, and the delivery time are some of the important considerations before choosing a method.
Each method has certain advantages and disadvantages and is better suited to a certain purpose and conditions than others. Some of the most common types of methods can be forums, consultations, briefings, interviews, focus groups, task forces, working committees, workshops, and surveys. It should also be noted here that a single technique may be too narrow to serve the purpose. Often, a combination of different techniques is required that are appropriate for different needs as well as to ensure participation by all types of stakeholders and from all groups in society.
Acceptance, co-operation, creativity, ensuring diversity, keeping a balance between SME, local knowledge, targets of change, and agents of change are a must to obtain the best results. No approach should be excluded when searching for specific solutions for each problem. It is also good to look at local, national, and international initiatives that have proven successful in similar contexts.
Based on the participatory method and the nature of engagement, each stakeholder should be assigned a role to play during the process. To ensure meaningful participation of all stakeholders, they need to be involved in those specific activities in which they have an interest and can contribute to their deliberations. Roles and responsibilities may differ based on the activity and the level of understanding, interest, and experience of each stakeholder. Some of these general roles include decision-makers, participants, reviewers, documenters/reporters, volunteers, facilitators, and most importantly sponsors.
Once the right stakeholders and their responsibilities are identified, the next step is to set up a mechanism to build trust with all the stakeholders. Educating citizens who have a right to play a part in shaping the decisions that affect their lives and providing surety that their input is being heard and will play a vital role in identifying an optimal solution or policy that works for everyone.
Once the tasks in all the above steps are finalized, the next step would be to outline a schedule to carry out the public participation activities and write down the overall plan of public participation. Defining the schedules for various activities is very important from the point of view of managing the overall process, mobilizing resources, and securing commitments from other stakeholders. After preparing the schedules, one can write the overall plan for public participation. The plan should ideally contain:
Once the entire activity has been completed and documented, the next step is to process all the data and convert it into meaningful information, keeping in view the finalized objectives of the process. With responses from all participants synthesized together, the analyst would be able to trace down the root causes of the manifested problem as well as show all links through other problems as well as identify constraints.
After compilation, this set of information needs to be reshared and validated by all the stakeholders before converting it into a formal policy or a project plan, etc.
Despite the important potential contribution of participatory methods, their use needs to be well thought through at all stages of the impact assessment. They cannot be seen as an easy or a set of tools that can easily be tacked onto conventional quantitative impact assessment to give the appearance of grassroots participation. Importantly, although participatory methods can be used on their own for rapid exploratory assessment, to increase their reliability and credibility they need to be triangulated with other quantitative and qualitative methods as part of an integrated impact assessment. Organizers of participation efforts often do not do formal evaluations, but they should consider doing both formative and summative evaluations.
Given the fact that the participatory processes do not have a single set of outcomes, hence there cannot be the go-to method to evaluate its effectiveness:
Individual, group, and community-level outcomes (e.g. individuals’ increased knowledge of a policy issue, effects on citizenship behavior), group-level outcomes (e.g. mutual learning within the group about others’ perspectives), and community-level outcomes (e.g. the development of new options not previously considered, overall measures of community betterment) Process-oriented outcomes (e.g. building trust among participants, incorporating a diverse group of stakeholders)
Participant-oriented outcomes (e.g. participants’ satisfaction with the process and the outcomes of the process, recognizing that different stakeholders have different criteria for success)
First, second, and third-order outcomes, which are, respectively, the immediately discernible effects of the process (e.g. the quality of initial agreements), impacts that unfold once the process is underway (e.g., the formation of new partnerships), and long-term impacts (e.g. less conflict among stakeholders in the future.
Documenting the right things in the right manner throughout the process is of utmost importance while implementing a participatory process. All statements made, actions performed, views expressed and the feedback provided, etc by any stakeholder can be of significant value to the organization working on the outcomes of the process. Various technological solutions can also be used to gather and process the information gathered during this phase.