Poverty alleviation through participatory development : a case study on the "Janasaviya Trust Fund"

Abstract

This paper examines the success of the janasaviya trust Fund program in achieving its principal objective, namely, the alleviation of poverty through participatory development. There are four agents in the participatory process of the ITF, i.e. the ITF, NGOs, small groups and the individual beneficiaries. The participatory development approach entails an approach to development, which is fundamentally different, in content as well as in form, from the conventional approach development. The ITF program, in the last five years of its operation, has developed a participatory mechanism at the village level. However, the political intervention both at national and local level, the absence of job satisfaction of the change agents (HRDWs), the currentstate of the developmental NGOs in the country and the bureaucratic nature of the apex body has undermined the successful operation of this mechanism.