The Value of Participation in Development - Relevance to Soil and Water Conservation

This keynote address by Raymond Renfro, ADBI's Director of Capacity Building and Training, was delivered at the International Symposium on Participatory Strategy for Soil and Water Conversation in Tokyo on 27 November 2004.

Participation of stakeholders in the design, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure projects is now, more or less, accepted in international development circles. However, this is a fairly recent phenomenon.

ADB's experience has shown that active participation and involvement of farmers and other stakeholders, including local government officials and nongovernment organizations, has been critical to the success, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of projects, often to the benefit of the rural poor.

Projects employing participatory approaches have higher rates of success. This paper presents evidence that active participation by stakeholders is infinitely preferable to implementing projects without people’s participation. Numerous examples are provided from irrigated and rainfed agriculture in Asia using post-evaluation reports from ADB and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) that demonstrate the benefits of active participation.

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