Observing the failure of anti-participatory development strategies of the last three decades and realizing the increasing trend of worldwide poverty, the author of the book suggests and creates arguments for the adoption of people-based participatory development in the Third World. He fervently believes that the construction of a just world is possible if people are empowered. To elaborate on this theme, in the first five chapters of the book, he criticizes the prevailing world system including aid agencies like the World Bank and USAID, whose aims and strategies often do not match the interests of the poor people. In the last seven chapters, Gran suggests how citizens, government and intermediate organizations could play effective roles to increase the participation and power of the poor in the Third World. The author feels that global poverty is the result of a prevailing world order where economic and political power is concentrated in the hands of the few corporations and states and where the existing cultural stratification and bureaucratic organization exclude people.
January 1986, volume 1, No 1&2