E-participation: A New Approach To Participatory Action

An interesting argument that I encountered when researching different approaches to increasing participation in urban slum community development is the idea of e-participation. E-participation is an interesting tool set up by the UN–Habitat’s Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) in collaboration with several other actors and organizations. This approach has the aim of developing innovative social-media tools for policy modeling and citizen participation.

The goal is to create an online tool for slum dwellers to voice their opinions of upgrading plans, prioritizing interventions, and monitoring as well as evaluating projects. This tool will allow community-based organizations and NGOs to better and more directly address the needs and concerns of community members. This would make community development much more transparent and increase the degree of accountability from organizations that work in slum development. E-participation thus allows for a better partnership between organizations and the people to create direct change that will greatly improve living conditions of many slum dwellers.

The organization I am working with, TECHO - Chile, does a lot of interactive work with the communities they partner with in order to address the specific needs of people living in slums. A major debate related to my organization that I have discovered is: What the most efficient way is to encourage and incorporate participation in community development programs, thus more efficiently benefiting communities that the organization works with. This leads me to ask, is e-participation a possibility of increasing participation in Chile?

The approach of e-participation, launched in Mtwapa, Kenya a few months ago trained participants to use social media tools such as Facebook, weblogs and email. This training allowed them the ability to share their opinions in order to ensure that upgrading projects are inclusive and address relevant problems. The approach was implemented but thus far the degree of success has not yet been reported. It was stated by UN-Habitat that the initial intervention workshop was received well by community members living in Mtwapa. For many who participated it was their first time working on a computer. Their responses were overwhelmingly positive toward the e-participation tool. Members of the slums recognized that this approach has the potential to allow for a higher level of participation while also exposing the poor to technology they never dreamed of being exposed to. It ultimately is a tool for empowerment.

This new form of participation is very interesting because it utilizes the development of technology in today’s society. By allowing people in poverty to access the Internet in order to voice their opinions, we are sharing the wealth of knowledge and technology with a population that otherwise would not be exposed to it. As technology continues to advance, I think that this form of participation may expand into more opportunities for the poor to share in the vast possibilities that technology and the Internet create.

E-participation has the potential for a great impact on the level of participation and collaboration between stakeholders in slums around the world. It also allows for greater documentation of progress communities are making. While there are many benefits that it may bring, there are also a large number of restrictions to this approach.

E-participation’s potential for success falls short when we consider the availability of this technology for most developing countries. How do we provide these communities with the computers necessary to voice their opinions? Is internet even available in many of these areas? In the future it may be possible that we increase the exposure of new technologies, but in our current society these resources aren’t nearly as plentiful as it would be necessary for this approach to be universal. This is an approach we should keep in mind for the future but as of now it may be more efficient to rely on direct interviews and surveys to assess the needs of community members and encourage participatory action. This method is much more feasible and cost effective.

Another limitation embedded in this approach is the time that it takes to teach individuals how to operate a computer. Our generation spends years learning how to type and spends many hours learning how to maneuver the Internet world. The time it would take to teach the impoverish how to operate this foreign technology would heavily outweigh the time it would take to simply verbally ask the people what they would like to be improved in their communities. Additionally, in order for people to type their opinions, we are making the major assumption that people are literate enough to do so.

While e-participation may be empowering to many people around the world, the restraints for effectiveness are rather high. This approach is an interesting advancement in participatory action that I think may potentially be very useful. Time will only tell if this is the new form of participation slum dwellers will be utilizing.