ABSTRACT
Experience with Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) suggests that a reversal of the normally dominant behaviour and the attitudes of outsiders is crucial for participatory development. Personal behaviour and attitudes, though, have been neglected in seeing how to do better. The development enterprise is oriented ‘North-South’ by patterns of dominance between ‘uppers’ and ‘lowers’, and by funding, pressures to disburse and upward accountability. These patterns increasingly affect NGOs, which may then become more like government organisations in scale, staffing, hierarchical culture, procedures and self-deception.
