Recent debates about integrated impact assessment have tended to treat participatory approaches and methods as a fashionable frill added on to more 'expert' quantitative and qualitative investigation. This paper argues that, far from being an optional add-on, participatory approaches, methods...

The World Development Report (WDR) process set new standards for openness and consultation. Its concepts and content are a major advance on its 1990 predecessor. The intention that its concepts and content should be influenced by voices of the poor was partly fulfilled. Conceptually, the VOP...