7.5 People-Centered Development

The theory: development of and by the people — the reversal of the top-down lens: Chambers'sRural Development: Putting the Last First (1983) — the poor's knowledge, the reversed gaze; participatory approaches (PRA — participatory rural appraisal: mapping, ranking, seasonal calendars — the methods Nepal's projects adopted wholesale); empowerment and conscientisation (Freire's pedagogy); indigenous knowledge as resource (the farmer's seed logic against the package of practices); rights-based development (entitlements, not charity); social mobilisation (the community organisations of Nepal's local governance programmes). Nepal's exemplary case (memorise as the answer):community forestry — the state handing forest user groups legal personality, rule-making power and benefit streams: tens of thousands of groups governing millions of hectares — reversed desertification, restored commons, and a global model (the "Nepal school" of participatory conservation). The honest critiques: participation's choreography (the meeting called to ratify the decided); local elites capturing user committees (the afno manchhe dynamics — Sociology Unit 6.3's diagnosis applied to development); the poor's time-cost of participating; women's token presence vs real voice.