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PREFACE

1. This book is aimed at those who want to build a humanist and solidarity-based society. A society based on the greatest possible participation of the people. A society built on a model of sustainable development that is directed towards satisfying people’s genuine needs equitably, and not the artificial wants created by capitalism in its irrational drive to obtain more profits. A society that does all this while ensuring that humanity’s future is not put at risk. A society in which the organized people decide what and how to produce.

2. The issue therefore, is how to achieve complete and active protagonism?¹ How can we guarantee, as much as possible, that all citizens, and not just activists or leftists, take an interest in participation? How can we achieve the participation of middle class sectors alongside popular sectors? How can we ensure that solidarity prevails over selfish interests? How can we respond to the concerns of the most disadvantaged and neglected people?

3. The authors of this book are convinced that it is through what we have called “decentralized participatory planning” that we can achieve these objectives. We have reached this conclusion not on the basis of books or academic debates, but largely through studying first-hand a range of practical experiences in participatory budgets and participatory planning.

4. We were attracted to the experience of participatory budgeting undertaken by the regional Workers’ Party government in Porto Alegre, Brazil, because we saw it as a new, non-corrupt, transparent way of governing that delegated meaningful power to the people.

5. In Venezuela, we got a strong sense of how individuals and the collective subject flourished as a result of former president Hugo Chavez’s initiative to promote the creation of communal councils — small community governments— and grant them resources for small projects. This was not done in a populist manner, with the state coming in and resolving a community’s problem for them; rather it was the result of a process of participatory planning, whereby citizens in the community carried out what Chavez called “the communal cycle.” This involved a diagnosis of the situation in the community, the development of a plan and budget, the implementation of a project, and the monitoring, evaluation and control over the carrying out of the project. And all this in small geographical spaces made up of no more than 2 thousand inhabitants.

6. Without a doubt, I was also taught some vital lessons from the practical experiences I was directly involved in during my stay in Venezuela, both in Libertador municipality in the state of Carabobo, and Torres municipality in Lara. To this list I should also add the knowledge obtained from participating in: “Planning in the Commune” workshops held with a group of spokespeople from the Union Noreste commune in San Jacinto, Barquisimento, Lara (October 2008); La Azulita commune, Merida (December 2008); and “Planning in the Community” workshops held for facilitators in Falcon municipality, in the state of Falcon (21-22 March 2009) and Rio Caribe, Arismendi municipality, Sucre (16-17 October 2009).

7. Further, our analysis was greatly enhanced by what we learnt from one of the first large-scale experiences in the world of “decentralized participatory planning”, which was undertaken in the Indian state of Kerala. There, an elected communist government decided in 1996 to carry out an important process of decentralization, involving not only monetary resources, but also material and human resources, to aid in the implementation of local development plans and facilitate the active participation of the people. This has led to greater participatory and economic development in Kerala when compared to the rest of India, and a growth in the self-esteem and self-confidence of the people. This type of decentralization allowed for greater local government autonomy when it came to planning their development, which enabled much more effective participatory planning. That is why we have titled our work: decentralized participatory planning (DPP).

8. Such a process can ensure that the people as a whole, and not only an elite, manage the wealth of society and begin to put that wealth at the service of society. That is why we believe that DPP is an essential feature of the new humanist and solidarity based society we want to build.

9. DPP has no political biases because all citizens are invited to participate in the creation and implementation of the development plan, in contributing their criteria and ideas, and in collaborating in the diversity of tasks involved in this process. All of this can help provide a space for coming together for people from across a wide political spectrum, including those that have never been members of a party or reject parties and politicians due to their often deserved reputations for corruption and favoritism.

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.