People's Participation Decentralization efforts will not succeed without strengthening rural institutions and voluntary social organizations that facilitate the active participation of rural people in the development and policy-making process.
Current reforms create new opportunities and new obstacles for people's participation.
A declining role of the central state implies a need for increasing people's capacities within the private sector and civic society to actively participate in the decision-making process. Developing sustainable capacities for participation requires organizational and institutional solutions, including the establishment of self-reliant and independent people's organizations. Increasing global economic competition, declining foreign aid and state subsidy flows have put new pressures on governments to reduce the level and improve the cost-efficiency of public services. Rural populations of many developing countries have been particularly hard pressed by these trends. This is because they tend to be politically and geographically more isolated and less socially organized than their urban counterparts and are rarely consulted in the formulation of agricultural and rural development policies.