Dear group members,

A new book on Third World development has been just released. Its title:

PARTICIPATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN MEXICO. How to involve people in their own development. (Verlag, 2008).

By Jaime Jiménez

Jacket text:

Lack of participation, political and otherwise, has been a case in point in Latin American countries in their struggle to develop, Mexico not being the exception. Political democracy is not enough for the implementation of both a better distribution of wealth and social justice. Development is an increase of people's ability and desire to satisfy their own needs and legitimate desires, and those of others with the means at their disposal. Development will be enhanced when individuals take part in all decisions that affect their lives. People have their own objectives and their own ideals in life. Therefore the more people participate in the decisions that affect their lives, the more they become developed. When one is able to loosen the bonds of negative cultural characteristics, initiative and creativity arise on the part of people that would remain silent otherwise, and development takes place. This book provides a method of participative strategic planning, the Reflection and Design Conference (RDC), that gives the opportunity for people to participate in the design and implementation of their own future, in ways that do not threaten established local authorities. This is of special importance when many of the participants are grassroots people without positions of prominence in any organization and sometimes have never aired their views in public before. In the RDC atmosphere they all have equal status. The ideas and concepts formulated in this book are of particular interest to organizational and community development practitioners and anyone interested in development in the right sense.

It may be purchased by Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Jimenez%2C+Jaime&x=14&y=22

It is a good buy!!