Citizen Participation In Development Research Articles

Role of Local Authorities and Public Officials in Encouraging Citizen Participation in Development Planning in Murewa District

This study unpacks the role played by government authorities in stimulating citizen participation in local development. Citizen participation, being the core to sustainable development, has been of interest among development practitioners and scholars alike, with varying degrees of attention in its scope and how participation can actually occur. One of the observed trends is the critical role played by both local and national government authorities. Development planning is closely tied to citizen participation under clearly defined roles of the officials involved. The participation of citizens in local activities is not a voluntary process but a deliberate action of the authorities through various measures such as creating an environment in which everyone is equally important in contributing to change in the communities they live. The role of local and national officials has been on spotlight in developing countries, including Zimbabwe and in marginalised areas such as Murewa District of Zimbabwe. The Murewa District of Mashonaland East Province has been cited as an area in which citizen participation has remained low. The objective of this paper is to therefore examine the extent to which local authorities in Murewa District encourage citizen participation and the bottlenecks that undermine this process. Data were collected through primary data sources, including questionnaire surveys and interviews with selected local authority officials. The results of the study indicate that in Murewa District most citizens have never had the opportunity to propose policies to the council, individually or collectively as part of the local community due to the prohibitive role played by the local authorities. The study also established that citizen participation cannot be separated from the role of local and national public officials who should provide leadership and guidance to the development process and create the required democratic culture by implementing the decentralisation agenda, as stipulated in the Zimbabwe 2013 Constitution and through the adoption of participatory policy at all levels of government.

TRANSFORMATION OF PUBLIC POLICY IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION OF NURSES ON QUESTIONS OF HELP AT THE END OF LIFE IN THE CONTEXT OF UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN UKRAINE

Possible directions of transformation of the state policy in the field of education of nurses in a narrow issue of end-of-life nursing care in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals are identified. The 70th UN General Assembly where civic society organizations actively participated adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as part of the Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2015, which included 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals. Global Goal 4.7 stated: «By 2030 ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development». This Goal also applies to medical education (in particular, for nurses). The improvement of the content of this education is actual in the context of the implementation of medical reform in Ukraine. A content analysis of the international curriculum for nurses and its comparison with teaching documents implemented in medical colleges in Ukraine has been made. The program developed in the United States with active participation of civil society organisations has been found to be consistent with UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.7. Comparing these documents, we can easily see Ukrainian curricula inconsistency with both international standards of nursing training and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These curricula form only a generalized understanding of the value of cultural diversity and human rights and do not include issues of social justice, inclusion, multidisciplinary cooperation etc. A content analysis of the Strategy for the Development of Medical Education in Ukraine, approved by the Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of 27th February, 2019, № 95-r, revealed that the document does not provide for the inclusion of aspects set out in Global Goal 4.7. Participation of citizens in development of national educational policy is the obligatory precondition for forming of the democratic society and encourages better compliance of educational programs with the needs of the population. It is argued that in the context of medical reform, it is necessary to change the approach to the content of medical education and the formation of the competence of nurses, in particular, in the field of end-of-life care in undergraduate education. Cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary cooperation is needed to develop quality training programs for nurses in line with international standards; this could be done in particular by involving civil society institutions in the process.

Deconstructing the multi-layered nature of citizen participation in Vietnam: conceptual connotations, discourses of international development, and the country’s institutional context

ABSTRACTCitizen participation is challenging to define in terms of meaning and application. This article begins with setting out the multi-dimensional nature of citizen participation in development. Through conceptual and contextual explorations, this article deconstructs the layers in the following ways: First, citizen participation is embedded with several conceptual connotations, therefore it is manifested to varying degrees and in different scopes of opportunity for citizens to affect policy decisions. Varieties of participation become more diverse when it comes to the power dynamics of different stakeholders, ranging from the government to citizens. Furthermore, its substantive presentation is intimately linked with the variables of citizen empowerment and government responsiveness. The second layer concerns the participatory development approaches of external development agencies. This article articulates how development discourses have integrated and developed the concept of participation, exploring the trajectory and critical concerns raised. The final layer concerns context, particularly Vietnam’s legal and policy frameworks, which explores consistencies and discrepancies between institutional settings and the presentation of citizen participation.

PARTISIPASI MASYARAKAT PADA PNPM MANDIRI PEDESAAN DALAM KONTEKS OTONOMI DAERAH (STUDI KASUS DI KAMPUNG PEPAS ASA KEC. BARONG TONGKOK KAB. KUTAI BARAT)

Participatory rural development program is a fundamental concept that has been releasing at long time ago and still be relevant in the future. Citizen participation in development was increased, and it leads to social welfare. To empower a member of society, government has declared the National Program of Society Empowering, Rural Autonomy which was implemented since 2007. The study results indicate that the degree of citizen participation in the PNPM activities at Pepas Asa Village is relatively low. Therefore, absolutely it is required to improve of society participation by optimizing the awareness activity and effectively socialization; and give prioritiy to capacity building of apparatus and citizen, not only to infrastructure development.

Participatory spaces and the Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee (AVCC): reshaping government plans

This article challenges the prevailing orthodoxy in the South African literature on participation in development, which suggests that it is government structures alone that determine citizen participation in development. It focuses on the empirical example of the Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee (AVCC), an affiliate of the Anti‐Privatisation Forum (APF), to show the ways in which agents shape and recreate development practices on the Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP), an African National Congress flagship programme. To do this, the article draws from interviews with stakeholders involved in the ARP as well as the AVCC who seek to contest the allocation of houses in the ARP. Following Cornwall (2004), this article argues that agents can force the government to concede to their demands despite the government's structures which initially appeared to exclude them.