Challenges
Ensuring that all sections of the community are able to participate is a challenge for participatory planning. Some approaches, such as Community-Based Planning, separate the community so that the livelihoods and preferred outcomes of different social groups can be identified.
Many experiences with Participatory Reflection and Action and participatory planning suffer from a lack of follow-up. PRA has often not been part of a system, but an ad-hoc process. Community-Based Planning has tried to overcome this by linking planning to the mainstream local government planning system.
Another challenge is caused by a lack of funds to actually implement the plans, which can lead to participation fatigue and frustration among communities. In the social-investment funds supported by the World Bank, participatory planning is often the first step, often leading to planning of infrastructure. In some cases, such as Community-Based Planning in South Africa, amounts of around US$3,500 to $6,800 are provided to each ward to implement activities arising from the ward plan. This then stimulates more widespread community action.
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