Building Bridges between Citizens and Local Governments Through Participatory Planning: Part 1 Concepts and Strategies

The UNCHS (United Nations Centre for Human Settlements) Elected Leadership Series of training manuals, developed within the Local Leadership and Management Training Programme, was particularly popular. It includes 13 manuals designed to help local government elected officials increase their knowledge and skills in key leadership roles and responsibilities. The series, available in more than fifteen languages, is used worldwide, not only by local government elected officials but leaders in non-governmental and community based organizations. It was the adaption of this series by the social sector that prompted UNCHS (Habitat) to initiate this series.

The intent of this manual is to look at options taht can help individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and local governments resolve their differences before they become intractable and destructive. It can be used to train local government officilas, civic organization leaders and staff, and interested citizens in the fundamentals of negotiation, mediation and facilitated decision making processes, increase the knowledge and skills of those who are already working in these roles and believe they can benefit from additional training, conduct orientation sessions for officials and citizens who want to know more about opportunities to manage conflict in their organizations and communities, and help train trainers to train others in the knowledge and skills associated with conflict management practices.

Table of Contents:

Foreword
Prologue
About this manual

Chapter 1. Perspectives on Participatory Planning

Chapter 2. Essential Characteristics of Participatory Planning

Chapter 3. Introduction to the Participatory Planning Process

Chapter 4. Phase I: Initiating the Participatory Planning Process

Chapter 5. Phase II: Building Productive Partnerships

Chapter 6. Phase III: Reaching Out - or - Focusing in

Chapter 7. Phase IV: Fact Finding and Analysis

Chapter 8. Phase V: Planning a Course of Action

Chapter 9. Phase VI: Implementing Plans, Measuring Success and Moving On