This thesis has two parts. Part I provides an overview of various concepts and issues associated with people's participation, NGOs, sustainable development, participatory approaches/techniques and practices in development. In Part I an effort is made theoretically to find out the extent, quality, effectiveness and sustainability of developmental activities as a result of changing the direction from a top-bottom approach to a bottom-up approach. Apart from indicating the need of people's participation for sustainable development, this part also describes the role of NGOs, their emergence and recent growth as a tool for alternative development, their drawbacks/limitations, their extent of introducing and developing participatory approaches/techniques, their source of funding, etc. A comparative review/analysis of the composition of NGOs and of the government sector of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan and the extent of people's participation in their respective development projects/programmes at policy level as well as in practice, is provided in this part, in order to find out how the priorities of target populations were overlooked by the two sectors. Similarly, in Part L various participatory approaches/techniques used by various development agencies in various phases of their project cycle, the linkage of sustainable development with people's participation and various issues associated with sustainable development are presented. Part II contains a comparative case study of the government of NWFP, Pakistan and NGO (Sarhad Rural Support Corporation -SRSC) from the point of view of people's participation adopted in their rural development projects. This attempt is made in order to examine the participation of the target population in terms of their involvement in planning, decision-making, implementation, benefit sharing and evaluation relating to the development projects pertaining to the government of NWFP and SRSC from a comparative point of view. The main aim is to assess and analyze the impact and relevance of people's participation in the NGO-led participatory development projects and government-led participatory development initiatives. Moreover, to see the comparative advantages and the drawbacks in order to improve the livelihood of the rural communities in NWFP, in particular, and of other developing and underdeveloped countries in general. At the macro level, this study reflects the participatory approaches and experience of various donors, development agencies and NGOs. At the micro level it contains an analysis of iii participatory approaches adopted by the government of NWFP, Pakistan and NGOs, at policy level aS Well a« in nro«f