My favourite quote of the millennium so far comes from Charles Leadbetter’s new book, ‘Living on Thin Air’. If the key to the eighteenth century is Adam Smith, he says, then the key to the twenty-first century is Delia Smith1 . This is because recipes, together with the way that Delia packages and promotes them, are the way in which knowledge is codified. It can then be passed on to millions, whereas cooking was previously passed on mainly from mother to daughter.
In the field of participation, PLA approaches to development provide one such recipe, or set of recipes. The purpose of this article is to describe what I think is another emerging recipe. In this article, we describe the whole process, then illustrate the various stages and finally review its strengths and weaknesses.
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Available at https://www.iied.org/g01899