Scaling up participatory development in towns and cities of the global South

Dates:	12 June 2019 - 13 June 2019
Times:	All day
What is it:	Conferences
Organiser:	Global Development Institute
How much:	£80
Who is it for:	University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public
Speaker:	Professor Vanessa Watson, Associate Professor Victoria Beard, Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi , Carlos Revilla, Muungano wa Wanavijiji, Zimbabwe Homeless People's Federation, 1to1, Slum Dwellers International (Kenya), Dialogue on Shelter (Zimbabwe), Kaustuv Bandyopadhyay, Gabriella Carolini

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The Global Development Institute will host a mini-conference to understand the opportunities and constraints on scaling up participation in towns and cities of the global South with a range of academics and practitioners. The purpose is to develop and share experiences of participation that is taking place, analyse outcomes from efforts to date, and develop an understanding about how to shift participatory development from a niche to the mainstream.

We welcome participation from scholars including PhD candidates who are researching similar themes. This conference has some limited space for additional papers and we welcome contributions concerned with the key themes around scaling up participation and amplifying the voices marginalised citizens

Key Dates:

Deadline for abstract submission: extended to 5 April 2019

Conference registration: 28 February - 31 May 2019

Conference: 12 and 13 June 2019

Register to attend here - https://estore.manchester.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-humanities/school-of-environment-education-and-development/scaling-up-participatory-development/scaling-up-participatory-development-in-towns-and-cities-of-the-global-south

The need for action: There is global recognition of the serious consequences of rising inequality. While this new recognition is to be welcomed, we have to also recognise long-standing problems that are receiving relatively little attention. Both inequalities and long-term disadvantage are particularly acute in towns and cities of the global South where between 30-70 per cent of the population live in informal settlements. This situation requires a multi-faceted response that includes new political priorities, new capital investments (particularly for regularisation and infrastructure) and new approaches by state officials.

Participation and politics: Organised citizens have long been active in the urban context. While some residents’ associations have been critiqued for engaging in clientelistic practices to advance their interests, urban social movements have taken direct action and developed multi-stakeholder alliances to change political relations and gain the investments they need. In many cases, these movements have reached beyond the neighbourhood level to secure improved access to basic services. Improved participation in both development programmes and government decision–making remains a priority for such movements. These efforts have developed a plurality of participatory practices, each building on critical engagement with past experiences and on present development governmentalities and technologies. As movements increase the scale and depth of influence, they provoke new responses (positive and negative) from the state. How can the benefits of such participation be secured? This conference will enable academics and civil society activists to share experiences and learning.

Conference Themes:

What is the challenge to participation represented by market-based development, and how can citizen participation be relevant if state engagement with informal settlements is focused on incorporating residents into the modern economy as consumers. How can citizens co-produce basic services with the state if the primary objective of the state is to maximise revenue?
Governments create opportunities for participation especially in housing and/or upgrading programmes. While much of their discourse suggests these opportunities are substantive, citizens’ experience these opportunities as superficial and demeaning. They often reduce citizen engagement by trivialising this potential. How can movements recapture the initiative and negotiate more substantive openings?
The devolution of powers to local government appears to create greater opportunities for participation. The localisation of governance processes appears to strengthen relations between the local state and citizens. However many devolution processes do not appear to have resulted in significant new efforts at participatory development. What can be learned from recent efforts at devolution and citizen engagement?
While participation is relevant to many disciplines, planning has a particularly close association with this practice. There have been efforts to shift away from master planning to collaborative practice, but these have had limited success. What can we learn from these efforts and what does this experience mean for professional and citizen planning?

The primary emphasis of discussions will be on the global South. However, we will use this opportunity to strengthen the shift in thinking away from international development towards global development through an engagement with University of Manchester activities to strengthen participatory democracy in Manchester.

If you are interested in taking part in the panels, please send us an abstract. We are planning a publication (probably a special journal issue) after the event.

This conference is generously supported by The University of Manchester’s Hallsworth Conference Fund and the Leverhulme Trust. It is held under the auspices of the Global Development Institute.

Price: £80