10. This form of planning is more than just an ideal instrument for achieving substantial citizens’ participation in the management of public affairs, because when people become involved in the planning process, they no longer feel like beggars demanding solutions from the state. They become the creators of their own destiny, and the destiny of their communities. This makes them grow as human beings; it gives them dignity, it increases their self-esteem and broadens their knowledge on political, cultural, social, economic and environmental issues.
11. In this activity, as in all human activity, there is a joint product.2 The first is the plan itself, which is an objective material product that has been developed in a participatory manner and is tangible in the sense that it is there for all to see. The second is a subjective human product that is much less tangible and can only be seen through discerning eyes. It is the transformation of the people, their growth as human beings, which occurs as a result of their involvement in this process, as noted above.
12. This is an educational process in which those that participate learn to inquire about the causes of things, to respect the opinion of others, to understand that the problems they face are not exclusive to their street or neighborhood but are related to the overall situation of the economy, the national social situation, and even the international situation. They learn that everyone’s problems and every community’s problems should be examined within the context of the reality that other people and other communities face, which may be much more difficult and urgent than theirs. Through this, new relations of solidarity and complementarity are created that place an emphasis on the collective rather than the individual.
13. All this means that those who participate in this process are politicized, in the broadest sense of the term, and develop an independent mind that can no longer be manipulated by a media that remains overwhelmingly in the hand of the opposition.
14. This book is an attempt to develop a simple guide, written in easily accessible language, which could help local governments facilitate a process of participatory planning (PP)3.
15. The original text has been revised several times. The Venezuelan economist Noel Lopez, with whom I published the e-book Planificación participativa en la comunidad (Participatory Planning in the community), played a big role in some of the earlier drafts. In more recent drafts, I relied on the collaboration of the Spanish economist José Bartolome who became a co-author of this book. I have also received vital input from Ximena de la Barra (Chile). I have also been able to rely on useful suggestions from Tomás Villasante (Spain), Rafael Enciso (Colombia/Venezuela), Francisco Cañizales (Venezuela), Evaristo Marcano (Venezuela), Álvaro Sáenz (Ecuador) and Carlos García Pleyán (Spain). I want to thank all of them for having accompanied me during the process of writing this text. I would like to also thank Federico Fuentes, the translator of this text and Dr. JoAnne Engelbert of the U.S. for her helpful suggestions on the translation. A very special role was played by Richard Franke (U.S.) who, motivated by his pedagogical vocation, has done a meticulous job in editing the English text, pointing out repetitions, suggesting clarifications and re-ordering some ideas. I would like to thank all of them for having accompanied us in the writing of this book.
16. This book consists of two volumes. In the first volume, we provide a general overview of the decentralized planning process. The second volume looks at our methodological proposal for how to carry out this process in communities, territorial areas and municipalities. Both the first and second volumes include an arsenal of instances and documents that will be required for all types of communities. We have paid particular attention to ensure they are useful for all contexts. This is not to say, however, that all municipalities and communities, particularly the smallest and poorest ones, should carry out all the tasks proposed here, as in these cases this may be out of their reach. The complexity of the process will depend on the level of decentralized achieved.
17. This first, more theoretical, volume contains two parts. The first part deals with conceptual aspects (planning, decentralized participatory planning, its political importance, necessary conditions for carrying out the process, the role of organized communities and the different phases and steps that need to be undertaken). The second part covers the different actors and instances involved in the process. This first volume has five Appendixes: the first outlines the three levels of decentralization and the responsibilities each level must assume; the second deals with the electoral process to use for forming the different representative bodies in the participatory planning process; the third offers a proposal for how to distribute financial resources to territorial areas in such a way as to ensure that the less well off benefit the most; the fourth provides an example timeline for the process, and the fifth deals with the issue of how to consolidate community organization once the planning process is over.
18. The detailed index we have provided helps give our readers a clearer vision of its content.
19. Of course, you may decide that our ideas are useful and take them up, or you may decide otherwise. Importantly, these ideas are always subject to revision in light of new experiences and lessons learned along the way.
20. Although an ideal scenario would involve the central state deciding to decentralize an important part of the nation’s resources earmarked for development, there is no doubt that a majority of countries are a long way from finding themselves in such a situation. Nevertheless, we believe that this should not stop local authorities who want to kick-start decentralized participatory planning processes in their local area from doing so and, in doing so, to contribute to the process of building the capacities of the citizens through their own concrete experiences and practice, and help them become protagonists of the new society we want to build, one in which peoples’ participation is a central feature.
21. Both authors would be extremely happy if our proposal was put into practice somewhere as part of a pilot project of local governments willing to promote participation, starting from the geographical smallest spaces that here we define as communities, and that afterwards, participants could pass on their suggestions for how to correct or adjust our proposal, based on the lived experience of trying to implement it.
—Marta Harnecker
December 7th, 2017
1. The term “protagonism” is a new word that has become widely used on the Latin American left to emphasize that the people should be the principal actors in building democracy. The English word “protagonist” has begun to be employed by the left in the same way. The idea is that ordinary people participate in and become masters of their own communities and their own development. In North American progressive circles, the term “empowered deliberative democracy” is sometimes used in a generally parallel sense
2. This idea that in all human activity there are two results, two joint products, comes from Michael A. Lebowitz.
3. We have re-worked sections from two previous books published in Spanish: Planificando desde abajo. Una propuesta de planificación participativa descentralizada (El Viejo Topo, España, 2015) and Planificando para construir organización comunitaria (El Viejo Topo, España, 2016). Those that have read these books with not find a lot of new material here besides an improved explanation of certain concepts and the order of presentation. There is also the clear advantage of having all this information on municipal decentralized participatory planning in one single text.
VOLUME I
Theoretical Aspects
PART I. CONCEPTUAL ASPECTS
CHAPTER I. WHAT WE MEAN BY DECENTRALIZED PARTICIPATORY PLANNING
1) SEEKING THE GREATEST