Many rural communities in the global South – including some 370 million indigenous peoples – are directly dependent on biodiversity and related traditional knowledge for their livelihoods, food security, healthcare and well-being. But with the loss of biodiversity, valuable resources such as climate-resilient crops, medicinal plants and wild foods are being lost. Cultural diversity is being eroded at an unprecedented rate and with it, ancestral knowledge of how to use and conserve biodiversity.

Designed for both experienced and new trainers who have an interest in training others in the use of participatory methods, whether they are researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, villagers or trainers.

All over the world citizens are starting to demand accountability from those in power. We are seeing exciting experiments in participatory governance. But are they working for young people? What spaces are most promising for the participation of children and young people in governance?

Do you work with or in an international or northern office of an international non-governmental organisation (INGO)? Do you facilitate participatory processes at the grassroots? Have you ever wondered how wide an impact the process might have?

This special issue of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) reflects on the journey towards participatory approaches in poverty reduction in China, focusing in particular on the transformations at the interface between the government and rural communities.

Where do you shit? In developing countries, the answer may determine whether you live or die. Around 2.6 billion people defecate in the open. The consequences are dire: shit carries disease and is major killer. Recently, a radical new particatory approach called Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) has encouraged millions of people to at, talk about and tackle the problems caused by open defecation.

How can Web 2.0 applications be integrated with participatory development approaches? How can they facilitate and contribute to people’s participation and decision-making? What are the challenges and barriers to people’s participation? How do we address factors such as access, equity, control, and oversight? Can Web 2.0 applications challenge fundamental social inequalities? This special issue aims to publish a collection of articles, which provide working examples from practice.

 This special issue focuses on recent approaches to climate change adaptation which are community-based and participatory. It highlights innovative participatory methods to help communities analyse the causes and effects of climate change, integrate scientific and community knowledge, and plan appropriate adaptation measures. Although CBA is a relatively new field, lessons and challenges are beginning to emerge, including the need to bring together disaster risk reduction, livelihoods, and climate change adaptation work, issues around the type and quality of participation in CBA, and the need for policies and institutions that support it.

This publication, produced in collaboration with WWF Southern Africa, looks at how community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) can inform and contribute to climate change adaptation at the community level, specifically to community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change. It provides a framework for analysing the two approaches at conceptual and practical levels.

Drawing on experience in Europe and wider literature, this paper offers some critical reflections on how—and under what conditions—the EU might support the development of innovative participatory approaches for the management of agricultural biodiversity in Europe.

The aim of this special issue is to critically reflect on those rarely-discussed elements of processes that are disempowering to those with least power. Problems include those that are political – such as when the outputs threaten to undermine a pre-conceived institutional objective, or methodological – often organisers are not even aware that already oppressed groups have been further marginalised by the way the process was facilitated. The issue looks at these dilemmas under three key themes: the ways in which participatory processes can oppress and empower; the use and abuse of knowledge and expertise; and the interplay between the power of globalised political-economic systems and attempts to create spaces for people.

This issue captures the diversity of Immersion opportunities for development professionals - spending a period of time living with and learning from a poor family. The common denominator is a concern to bring immersion participants face to face with ordinary people, giving them the chance to test old assumptions, develop new perspectives, and strengthen their commitment to the challenge of poverty eradication.