This paper presents evaluations of government policies by poor residents of
Colombo who were active participants in initiatives to improve housing and basic
services. Their testimony tells of the radical break from conventional, top-down
approaches within the government’s Million Houses Programme during the
late 1980s and early 1990s. Community development councils and a participatory
methodology known as community action planning meant that residents and
community leaders worked with government officers to identify problems, set
priorities and develop solutions. But it proved difficult to sustain these in
the face of widespread poverty, entrenched government institutions and power
structures antagonistic to community participation. The grassroots testimony
also tells of the difficulties of preventing NGOs from controlling the
initiatives and politicians from undermining them. The participatory approaches
were abandoned when the government changed in the mid-1990s.
