Participatory Development and Reconstruction: a literature review

In the past decade researchers and development experts have been preoccupied by participatory development and reconstruction. Despite criticisms of its potential, it has been at the centre of development practices. This review of both published and unpublished literature aims to assess the importance of participatory development and reconstruction, especially its positive and negative characteristics. The paper shows that, despite its potentially transformative role, its main drawback rests in the power relations between elites and non-elites and that creating comprehensible ways through which non-elites can deal with these relations is one issue that needs additional research. Other issues that need more research are related to how to sustain the participatory development and reconstruction outcomes by increasing local ownership, and how to better involve existing structures and institutions (both state and non-state actors) in development and reconstruction efforts for poverty alleviation.