Participation in decision-making processes of community development agents: a study from Peru

Abstract

This article argues that although Civil Social Organizations (CSOs) aspire towards a culture of participatory process-driven governance and management, the reality seems far from this aspiration. A culture of participatory processes is understood in this study as working and decisional engagement practices which are part of internal decision-making and action-taking processes from Community Development Agents (CDAs). This brings an ethical dilemma, as these organizations claim to operate upon principles of participation, solidarity, democracy, social justice, human dignity and decent work. Through this study, 506 Peruvian CDAs offered their own analyses about the factors that foster and/or inhibit their participation in specific organizational managerial and professional developmental areas, such as: systemic planning, organization, sustainable management and empowerment. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies was used to gain a comprehensive understanding of the field of study. Dialogical focus groups were applied, by which CDAs themselves identified and deconstructed the inhibiting and facilitating factors. The study echoes CDAs’ aspiration to engage meaningfully with decision-making and action-taking processes as well as creating the participatory mechanisms and processes themselves. In order to do this, CDAs demand an ethical and democratic competence-based training, to empower them to democratize their organizational structures and to counterbalance their daily power relations and dynamics.