Abstract:
Immediately after independence, Sri Lanka has made an attempt to improve
the quality of life of people by way of implementing multi-sectoral
development programmes adopting conventional type of " top down "
strategy which has been similarly implemented during the colonial era.
The " top - down " development strategy is a bureaucratic method in which
the decision making mechanism is in the hands of higher authorities
comprising of personnel of the central agency. The significant feature of this
strategy is that the beneficiary communities have been isolated from the
implementation and the maintenance process of development activities.
With the lapse of time it has been identified that strategies of this nature have
not helped to address the issues pertaining to the country's development as
expected . This situation encouraged the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) to
change the development scenarios and to introduce participatory management
concept for its various development programmes , in which overall
responsibility of managing development activities are to be under taken by the
beneficiary community, as an alternative strategy.
During last decades, the GOSL has implemented several multi-sectoral
development programmes adopting the new concept. The problem in this
regard is that there is no proven evidence to show that such development
programmes introduced under the new strategy have been able to reach the
goals expected by development agencies. Furthermore no acceptable
participatory management model has been developed to explore its strengths
and weaknesses even in future implementation of development programmes
in the country.
