Participatory Learning and Action 59:
Participatory web for development

Forthcoming December 2008
Guest editors: Jon Corbett and Holly Ashley

Technological innovation is taking place at a breathtaking pace. We are seeing the emergence of dozens of free or very low-cost interactive web applications and services that can enhance the ways we create, share and publish information, and the ways we collaborate and share resources.

The result is the equivalent of a massive software upgrade for the entire Web, what some commentators have taken to calling Web 2.0. Whereas Web 1.0 is largely static and focuses on information dissemination with the flow of content moving unilaterally from the producer to the consumer, Web 2.0 is based on user centered applications that promote communication, user empowerment, collaboration and social networking.

These developments provide us with a set of technical opportunities and challenges that we need to understand and grasp. To exploit the tools, and tap the full potential of ‘web 2.0’ applications and thinking on institutional and individual behaviours, we also need to consider how these new applications interact with the ways that individuals and institutions communicate, collaborate, and apply knowledge to development problems.

This issue of PLA will look at the participatory nature of these tools. A selection of articles focusing on this theme is being selected from papers presented at the conference ‘Web2ForDev 2007: Participatory Web for Development – Networking, collaborating and exchanging knowledge in agriculture, rural development and natural resource management,’ held in Rome, Italy, 24-27 September 2007.

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