About 15 years ago, the donor community introduced participatory development programs in order to better respond to criticism that they do not sufficiently take into account the real needs of the populations of developing countries. These programs involve the targeted populations in their design and implementation. On the basis of theoretical and empirical studies already conducted on the subject, this article aims to evaluate whether participatory development approaches introduce sufficient added value for it to be worthwhile for aid agencies to include more of these programs in their portfolio of potential aid instruments.