The Tribune

By ROCHELLE DEAN

IN AN era when information is at everyone’s fingertips, The Bahamas has created a culture that the people’s business is only for a significant few.

The politically influential, political hopefuls, selected academicians and activists and the elite remain at the helm of national issues while the masses are left to limited and sometimes misinformed information and a lack of knowledge as to how to gain access to becoming fully informed and engaged participants in their own country.

The government has placed itself in the position of being responsible for its nationals and must now encourage proper participatory engagement of Bahamians at all levels.

Participatory engagement creates a knowledgeable, engaged society with national interest for the country’s business and people who actively participate in positive community outcomes that promote progressive growth of the nation and a strong thriving democracy.

The Bahamas must begin to engage its nationals at all levels if the country is to be impacted by the diversity, creativity and competencies that its people possess.

Participatory engagement goes beyond town hall meetings and community social events but also includes encouraging community projects supported, facilitated and carried out by skilled individuals who have an understanding of community development but also activates community leadership. This is the beginning of building a fully engaged society which participates in the national debate with knowledge, action and positive results.

Interactive participation fosters people participating in joint analysis, which leads to action plans and formation of new local institutions and the strengthening of existing ones. This involves encouraging multiple perspectives and the use of structured learning processes which allow for those engaged to participate in making local decisions and give the Bahamian people a stake in maintaining structure and implementing new ones. This fosters a spirit of inclusion and helps to keep leaders in touch with issues that they may not be subject to experience.

The Bahamas must make participatory engagement of its nationals available to all nationals with the principle that there are stages to each person’s level of engagement. This does not stagnate growth but it encourages Bahamians to become informed and take the correct steps as they engage in issues of national development.

Education should never be used as the barrier to development but seen as the method that makes the educated do better. Participatory engagement gives all nationals from every walk of life access to knowledge that can promote good governance practices.

It is the responsibility of the nation’s leaders to encourage participatory engagement for the people which gives the country accessibility to good ideas, removes cronyism and the ‘all for me, baby’ syndrome that continues to plague the country. Participatory engagement fosters inclusion and removes unmerited competition.

As The Bahamas continues to grow as a nation, participatory engagement is needed at all levels of society so that the Bahamian people can give the necessary support to organisations, become goal- and results-driven activists and champions for causes that will aid public-private partnerships and the government whenever necessary on matters that impact the country.

Poverty alleviation begins with a plan to facilitate proper measures of participatory engagement.

Rochelle R Dean is a Bahamian scholar, research fellow and peer-reviewer and a theory writer of economics presently completing a Bachelors of Science dual degree in economics and public administration with Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia. Comments to dean_rochelle@yahoo.com