Since 1979, Sri Lanka has been implementing the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), in which certain achievements in infrastructure development have been recognized. However, since it lacks a scheme under which residents can take initiative, it is less successful in poverty reduction and the creation of new jobs. Thus, most of the recent IRDP projects adopted participatory approaches...

The International Labour Organization (ILO) serves as the only international agency that has adopted specific standards covering indigenous peoples. To address the issue, ILO has taken a twofold approach of promoting its Convention 169 at the government level and providing technical assistance on indigenous peoples issues. ILO’s current development program for indigenous peoples is INDISCO, whi...

The design, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of an enhanced community-engagement program that uses poetry, film, and photography at a film festival in south Los Angeles is described. This project is one of several Talking Wellness projects designed to develop social capital and enhance community engagement in projects designed to improve the community's capacity to communicate effecti...

This paper outlines one of the projects from my PhD research which proposes the use of tangible design methods in participatory and creative scenarios to enable the conceptualization of uses for "the internet of things" that is to say the contemporary interest in connecting everyday objects together in networks, for the home, in social settings or over the internet. This is related to the incre...

Designing information systems according to user requirements is crucial for software developers. In computer science education, acquiring necessary social skills to elicit and define those requirements is underdeveloped. We introduce a studentcentered, project-based learning approach with a student team project, which tries to support these learning processes. Based on existing examples for pro...

Participatory research relies on stakeholder inputs to obtain its acclaimed benefits of improved social relevance, validity, and actionability of research outcomes. We focus here on participatory research in the context of natural resource management. Participants’ acceptance of participatory research processes is key to their implementation. Our first assumption is that this positive view and ...

Environmental volunteering and environmental citizen science projects both have a pivotal role in civic participation. However, one of the common challenges is recruiting and retaining an adequate level of participant engagement to ensure the sustainability of these projects. Thus, understanding patterns of participation is fundamental to both types of projects. This study uses and builds on ex...

BACKGROUND Although there is strong scientific, policy, and community support for community-engaged research (CEnR)-including community-based participatory research (CBPR)-the science of CEnR is still developing. OBJECTIVE To describe structural differences in federally funded CEnR projects by type of research (i.e., descriptive, intervention, or dissemination/policy change) and race/ethnicit...

Limited research has focused on recruitment strategies for health promotion researchers conducting small-scale pilot studies. Such research is important because small studies often have limited funding streams and personnel resources. Accordingly, many techniques implemented by large-scale studies are of limited use to smaller research projects. This article provides an overview effective parti...

• Participation by civil society in public expenditure management promises to improve social and economic outcomes while increasing confidence in public institutions. • Participatory budgeting (PB) programmes depend on the effective engagement of three key domestic stakeholders: governments, civil society and legislatures. Participatory budgeting cannot be imposed. • The successful execution of...