Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

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The final summing up was made independently by a leading political scientist
and a spokesman from an agricultural workers union cooperative that over
twenty years has grown to become a major economic and social force in the
region in which it is installed.
What was important about these different events was not just the results
of the discussions but the discussions themselves; both went together. As all
of us gradually unlearned our professional frameworks and relearned how
to be with each other in talk so the knowledges began to connect. After all
knowledge is not an abstract being that floats around in the air; it is present
in talk, in places and in the resolution of problems. As the knowledges began
to connect, so ideas began to emerge and to ‘make sense’, often very
different from ideas that were previously held or that were common in the
field of social action. More important still, many have been taken forward
by those involved independently of any specific mandate or documented
conclusion.
Amongst the various examples that could be given of the conclusions
reached, is one with considerable consequences for the process of aid. This
was the recognition that the activities, projects and programs under discussion,
many of which were highly successful, were very much processes in
action and not pre-planned models of intervention with phases, indicators
and goals. There were no precise objectives, clear strategies and welldefined
procedures and budgets; rather the opposite. They took shape
inductively in practice and with time, integrating other elements and ideas
within the flow of action. They were negotiated along the way, taking advantage
of openings and possibilities, being influenced by new arguments
and contributions. If there was any planning, it was much more adaptive,
messy and incremental than elegant and concise. Even in so-called ‘integrated’
activities and approaches, it was not possible to identify a programmatic
plan that had been previously defined and was capable of guaranteeing
results. Frequently, what were described as strategies were, in fact, the
ex-post recognition of links between different actions adopted, rather than
the ex-ante specification of causal steps. The activities, projects and programs
that seemed to have been effective were the result of people trying
to solve problems the best they could, rather than the application of planning
and decision technology. They were collective and turbulent learning
processes rather than the technological application of ideal models; they
were about innovation rather than best practices. They used knowledge to
get going, but gathered further knowledge, pragmatically and locally relevant,
along the road often in the shape of inter-organizational links, partnerships
and alliances with a variety of different groupings.
This notion of dialogue as ‘where we are trying to get to’ rather than as
‘where we start from’ has proved very useful in many respects. It has enabled
us to understand how equality and inclusion must be understood as
social starting points rather than social goals and, at the same time, how the