The adjective smart in the context of ‘smart cities’ and ‘smart villages’ tends to get narrowly associated with infrastructure development and information technology based services, sometimes ignoring the idea that people must be at the centre of development if it is to be truly sustainable. The official communication on ‘smart villages’ initiative reiterates the idea of ‘provisioning’ and ‘providing’ of infrastructure and amenities, pointing towards a supply side driven approach. It needs to be recognised that a village can only be as smart as its citizens want it to be. Thus, there is a need to empower and enable the citizens to envision, debate, design and drive their own development and only then can development be sustainable.

Development Alternatives (DA) with the support of Commonwealth Foundation, initiated a programme aimed at strengthening people’s participation in local governance and development and to promote the mainstreaming of environmental concerns in local development and planning processes. The programme, operational in 20 villages of Bundelkhand, an extremely backward region in Central India identified as its key stakeholders - women, youth and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). The programme graduated through phases of extensive sensitisation, targeted capacity building and focused micro-planning and convergence for environmental mainstreaming. Through the course of its implementation, the programme yielded valuable insights on effective strategies for participatory governance and sustainable development at the village level.

One of the key insights emerging out of this initiative has been that with enhanced participation of communities in processes of local governance comes enhanced ownership of the development process and stakeholders start perceiving themselves as not just beneficiaries but as drivers and architects of the development of their village. Thus in several villages where there was inadequate infrastructure for drinking water delivery, the communities not only demanded infrastructure improvement at the Gram Sabhas but also took collective initiative often under the leadership of the women’s groups to initiate action through community contribution.

It has also been observed that the strengthening of local institutions such as women self help groups (SHGs) and village development committees (VDCs) also leads to more active community participation in processes of local governance and planning. An added advantage is that as community groups meet prior to their participation in Gram Sabhas, concerns such as those of local environmental issues that affect the community as a whole get prioritised over personal concerns of stakeholders for purpose of collective advocacy, thereby leading to more equitable development. Investing in awareness creation on available options for local development also enables community advocacy and local planning to be more targeted and result oriented. There is thus a need to sensitise communities to a basket of appropriate options for local development.

The programme has also invested in creating platforms for sharing of experiences on good governance across the 20 villages and also with a wider civil society network. This has yielded positive impact in not only generating pride amongst the featured communities but also inspiring communities in other villages to initiate local collaborative advocacy and action to address their concerns.

This initiative of Development Alternatives is probably one of many diverse initiatives by both state and non-state development actors across the country on strengthening people’s participation in local governance and it is important for the lessons emerging from these initiatives to be shared, analysed and adopted for more effective design and implementation of mainstream government programmes for village development. q