Sustainable
Network Management: A Landmark In Participatory Development
By Jhabindra Bhandari
September 29, 2001
THE history of participatory development networks
in Nepal is not very long. The decades long practical
experiences at national and international level have
clearly indicated that the development efforts should
realistically focus on people centered development
strategy in order to reach the goal of poverty alleviation
for sustainable human development.
A network, in this regards, is therefore an institutionalised
process to address common issues on information, communications,
and coordination among the organisations and individuals.
There was a greater realisation in the country on
the crucial need of a network of development practitioners
who believe in participatory development values and
practices—with the hope that it would result
in an effective and functional networking system to
promote participatory development process effectively.
A forum of such like minded individuals and organisations
having both interest and solid experiences eventually
succeeded to establish a network. Later it was named
as Nepal Participatory Action Network (NEPAN) in 1995.
Actually, it was a major landmark in the history of
a broader network in the country for sharing experiences
in the area of community development initiatives at
the grass roots.
Like other participatory development networks at national
and international scenario, the sole objective of
the NEPAN is largely to undertake advocacy to development
institutions and individuals practitioners on the
growing needs and importance of participatory approach
in development. The ultimate purpose of participatory
development is to empower people who are poor, disadvantaged
and socially marginalised in most societies and hence
enlarge their choices for sustainable development.
Right after the growing recognition of NEPAN, there
was a significant development of other networks at
the regional and district levels to promote the similar
philosophy of participatory development.
In the area of network management, Nepal, like many
other countries, is actually gaining momentum with
the initiation, active participation of development
practitioners and organisations. There has been remarkable
progress in dissemination and sharing of grass root
documentation on a wide range of development approaches
and important issues to the policy makers and planners
of both the governmental and non governmental organisations.
In this regards, the Institute of Development Studies
(IDS), University of Sussex, UK has been launching
a project named "Pathways to Participation"
in different countries of the world. And more importantly,
it has been interesting and useful in terms of sharing
and learning experiences in participatory development
prctices in different contexts. The sharing of such
experiences and learning are taking place not only
at local level but equally at national and international
level.
Recognising the importance of networking and its sustainable
management, it is interesting to note that the ERPAN
in collaboration with the IDS, UK and Action Aid Nepal
successfully organised a national workshop on network
management in Biratnagar in November last year where
representatives of various national and international
networks exchanged information and experiences regarding
the significance of network management.
In the course of sharing networking experiences from
abroad, G.L. Pratt of the IDS, UK presented the experiences
in IDS group as well as global experience of participatory
network management. These, however, largely vary from
one country to the other depending on the purpose
and institutional framework.
On the other hand, the emerging needs of participatory
approach in development were deeply raised. Example:
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) – a popular
approach that has gained remarkable recognition in
NGO’s community development programmes. And
its quality received an important theme for further
discussions.
More importantly, this was the first time in Nepal
that the event was organised to exchange ideas and
practices of network management at national and international
level and formulate pragmatic strategies for sustainable
network management. The existing status, scope and
emerging issues of networking were intensively discussed
to have a shared vision.
Even though, there is increasing importance of networks,
there are daunting challenges to manage such networks
effectively. Therefore, the focus should be on human
resoruce development, advocacy, research, publication
and documentation in participatory network management.
National Coordinator of NEPAN expressed the view that
there are growing demands of membership in the networks.
And there is wider scope of such networks in terms
of facilitating participatory development process
to similar networks at local level. However, effective
mobilisation of the network members is still an issue
for sustainability.
Until recently, such networks were viewed as a training
and quality control organisation for participatory
methodo-logies like PRA. But these days, it is felt
that resource mobilisation is a matter of concern
in network management. Among many others, commitment
and motivation of network members have been crucial
for institutional development of networks. More importantly,
process documentation is extremely essential in sharing
experiences among a number of partners for better
institutional linkage.
Undoubtedly, the crux of the matter related to sustainable
network management is largely to ensure people’s
participation in development and meaningful exchange
of grassroots experiences in a diverse range of community
development initiatives.
In this way, sharing of experiences through such networks
at local, national and international level plays an
important role not only to promote participatory development
process but also help formulate policy and plans that
are more response to people’s needs and priorities.
Hence, local recognition and ownership of such networks
is extremely important for programme sustainability.
