Planning from Below

Book excerpt: A simple and revolutionary toolbox to help any group create an actual and functioning democracy In this book, Marta Harnecker, with Spanish economist José Bartolomé, shares some of her wisdom on how communities everywhere can gain empowerment. For, when impoverished people became involved in the planning process, they no longer feel like beggars demanding solutions from the state; they become the creators of their own destiny. Set out in two parts; this book first demonstrates the importance of community participants working outside a hierarchy, to allow as much decentralization as possible. The second part of the book centers on the methodology of this process: the various tasks taken on by participants and how, in planning processes over years, they are carried out.