Since the mid 1980s participation has been a key concept in the discourse of development politics. Participatory development is defined as a process which actively and substantially involves people in all decisions affecting their lives (BMZ, 1999). Today involving the stakeholders, the poor and disadvantaged groups – often women - in reaching and implementing decisions is regarded as a basic prerequisite for effective development work. That is why the phrase “development aid” has almost entirely been replaced by “development cooperation” (DC).

In the course of time people’s understanding of participation in DC has changed. Initially the main idea was to involve disadvantaged segments of the population in project work generally, with the aim that participatory processes should get stakeholders interested in and willing to accept development projects, so that such projects have more lasting effects.

As time has gone by, participation in DC has grown more “political”: today more importance is attached to participation at all levels of policymaking. Through policy-oriented participation by and empowerment of the population at large, attempts are made to alter existing power structures in favour of civil society. In the context of increasing political participation, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (German Society for Technical Cooperation) no longer defines issues such as

Protecting human rights
Strengthening civil society
Promoting Good Governance
Supporting democratization
Preventing and dealing with conflicts

as determining factors for DC, but as spheres of activity in their own right.

As long ago as the 1960s and 1970s Paulo Freire, the Brazilian pioneer of development research, caused a sensation with his liberation movement against oppression. He distinguishes between active and passive participation:

Where a development project already exists and it is only a question of participating in it, this is a case of passive participation.
By contrast, in the case of active participation the stakeholders take the initiative themselves. They define their own goals, which are reached in a separate process – with or without support from outside.

Participation is not only an important means of structuring projects and programs, but has become an aim of modern DC in its own right. The following links provide information about

>> Why participation in DC?

>> Principles of participation in DC

>> Gender perspective – empowering women

>> An example from Ecuador