The Critical Villager - Beyond Community Participation (Paperback)

Development aid is often ineffective and unsustainable. The scale of problems being faced by the Third World demands large scale, replicable solutions but the high rate of failure in aid projects is often ascribed to inadequate consideration of local culture and conditions. Can demands for actions be reconciled with location-specific solutions? "The Critical Villager" argues that community-based participatory research and "transfer of technology" are not rival models of development, but complementary components of effective aid. The eight practical principles for evaluation and action describes a call for students, development workers, policy makers and researchers to put themselves in the shoes of the intended beneficiaries of aid. "The Critical Villager" suggests that despite the wide range of cultures and circumstances, there are certain constant principles underlying how people select new technologies and practices which can guide how aid interventions are designed.