Flowing With the River’s Go: Seeking Ethical, Pragmatic, and Strategic Participation in the Design of a Regional Funding Strategy

In this article, we share methodological lessons learned from a participatory regional planning process which was intended to produce a regional strategy for a multiactor program on human rights and rural development in the Southern Highlands of Peru, funded by the Belgian solidarity organization Broederlijk Delen (BD). The underlying goal of the planning process, which was also funded by BD, was to shift the practices of planning, decision making, and evaluation in the program, by strengthening participation of local communities and social change-focused organizations. As such, a broad group of these actors were invited and participated in the nearly year-long planning process. Throughout, we as facilitators used many creative, reflective methods—for example, drawings, co-construction of timelines and mind maps, reflective plenaries, and so forth—that we hoped would “speak” to the different participants’ learning styles and ways of knowing and therefore increase their levels of participation and ownership in the process and program. In this article, we ask the question “to what extent was the process really participatory?” in order to help explain ways in which “participatory methods” enable and constrain participant knowledge and identity, and highlight ways to improve participation through the use of methodology.