Evaluation of a Participatory Development Project in three Norwegian Rural Communities

Abstract

The paper deals with an action-oriented development project in one agrarian, one fishing and one industrial community. The author tries to analyse and evaluate the effect of a participatory development project initiated by the researchers but later adopted by community organisations. These organisations, (‘the Community Development Society’), were partly established through the project. A central tool in this project was the ‘search conference’, a two-day meeting of 30–40 local participants, which was set up to search for social needs, new ideas and initiatives. From these ideas some initiatives were given priority and further concrete plans were made. Some of these ideas have been followed up and realised today, while some are still under consideration. In the last part of the paper the author finds that this method of work will give the best results in an agrarian community with simple commodity products as the main mode of production. In industrial communities the contradiction between labour and capital will easily prevent the necessary collaboration at the local level. The interdisciplinary project staff failed to see the need for collaboration with local government organs. Relying too much on mass mobilization and grass-roots participation, some of the plans failed through lack of public support. The author advocates a dialogue between the ‘realistic’ position of public administration and the ‘idealistic’ position of this project.