The development "industry" within Africa can be seen to have had five main stages of evolution. In the fifties Development Agencies did development to the poorer communities. In the sixties they did development for the communities. The next decade saw them doing development through the people. And then, in the nineties the method was to work participatively, ie with the people. Now, the latest development is to empower the people to undertake their own development.

Here in Latin America, it seems the trends are not as advanced. With some NGOs still undertaking development for the people, while others have progressed to working with the people.

The latest stage has been seen as necessary due to the deficiencies of the participation ideas. While many of the larger development founders have finally caught up with the participation ideas (or at least they use the jargon of participation), some NGOs are already a step ahead.

The main problems with participatory approaches such as Participatory Rural Appraisal is just that – it is problem oriented. Through the various participatory processes, a community/organisation comes to see itself as a group that has many, many problems. And that, it is dependant on the NGO, or outside expert to find the solutions, and generally to supply the funding. The obvious implication is that once this problem (or set of problems has been solved), others will surface, thus creating a circle of problem identification, analysis, solving (by the NGO) and implementation. While this cycle is clearly beneficial for the employment of the NGO officers and design consultants, it is not leading the group to become independent, psychologically. The community/organisation becomes more and more convinced that it is full of problems that only outside help and finance can solve.

One of the more cutting-edge developments leading away from this psychologically-created dependency is called Appreciate Planning and Action It is strongly based in Appreciative Inquiry, which has been successfully used in large corporate structures in many countries.

Appreciate Inquiry itself is based in a number of seemingly simple and yet very powerful and subtle premises

• In every society, organization or group, something works.
• What we focus on becomes our reality.
• Reality is created in the moment and there are multiple realities.
• The act of asking questions of an organization or group influences the group in some way.
• People have more confidence and comfort to journey to the future (the unknown) when they carry forward parts of the past (the known).
• If we carry parts of the past forward, they should be what are best about the past.
• It is important to value differences.
• The language we use creates our reality.

With these premises, the approach is a positive one, in which we start from what is working, and working well, and work towards improving that, and building on the identified strengths to develop a community based vision and action plan. The basic steps within this approach are

 Within this approach, the role of the NGO personnel/consultants becomes one of facilitators and at times technical advisors. When the community comes to the Design phase, they may need extra information; it is then the role of the facilitator to supply the information asked for.

Permaculture is an integrated design system that emphasizes working with the natural cycles and processes of Nature to develop human settlements that are highly efficient and sustainable. Originally developed in the cool wet climates of southern Australia, it has now been trailed and developed in almost every country of the world. As such, Permaculture has the information and technologies that can be easily adapted and adopted by groups in their development toward sustainability. It is therefore the ideal accompaniment to the Appreciate Inquiry approach, having a unique and special contribution at the Design and Deliver stages.

Appreciative Sustainability is a blend of Appreciate Inquiry and Permaculture.

In the forthcoming Appreciative Sustainability program, it is not possible to give an accurately defined schedule of the course, as the exact details will depend on the interests and ideas of the participants. However a broad outline of the course would be

• Introductions and Basic Course Outline
• Discovering the life of your community/group/family, the peak moments, listening to the stories.
• Creating the Images and Visions of the group
• What are the essential parts needed to put the Dream into Practice – what is possible?

• • Soils, their life, their conservation, their creation, their care.
  • Water, the most precious liquid.
  • Health, the most important resource in any society
  • The money to do it all?
  • Can we work together?

• Putting the pieces together – modeling the Dream.
• Action Time
• Evaluation, wind-up and into the Future!.

Certification – within the International Permaculture Network the only agreed recognized (internationally) level of course is the Design Certificate Course. This course is not long enough to comply with this requirement. However, participants especially interested this level of certification will be able to undertake a period of self-directed study and design after the course. The final product needs to be submitted to the Instituto de Permacultura de Mexico for assessment and final issuing of the Permaculture Design Certificate.

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Facilitated Workshops

• “Visioning Workshops” (such as Appreciative Open Space) for groups and communities to help them set  future direction, develop action plans or prioritize planning options.
• Participatory Planning. I have a strong interest in participatory   processes which enable groups to make useful, large scale decisions.  For example, in the area of development there are a number of processes  which can be run as workshops which encourage everyone that will be  affected by the planning to both attend and have a say in the final  outcome. While participation was a key ingredient in the Agenda 21  document put out by the Rio Summit in 1992, very few countries and very  little development planning has used the techniques that are available.   One such technique has been developed in England by the Neighbourhood   Initiatives Foundation for use by local communities in assessing their  long term planning priorities. Called “Planning for Real”, this  processes uses a large scale model to defuse possible personality  clashes and allow even the quieter people to have input.  The  participatory approach is equally suited to commercial operations. In  fact this will increasingly become an important consideration, as  businesses find themselves pressured competition form foreign   investments and also forced to consider long-term environmental  constraints and limitations. These concepts are enclosed in the course Appreciative Sustainability.
• Micro-economics Workshop. For projects to be sustainable we must   consider more than just good design or an appropriate suite of eco- technologies. Social realities also play a vital role. One such  powerful reality is economics. This workshops introduces the participants to a number of alternative, small-scale alternative systems of economics. It uses detailed case studies of many innovative projects from around the world.

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