Factors influencing community participation in donor funded projects: experiences from padep community projects in Morogoro District, Tanzania

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Date

2019

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Sokoine University of Agriculture

Abstract

Community participation in implementation and development projects has become a topical agenda. Morogoro District is one among the districts in Tanzania where Participatory Agricultural Development and Empowerment Projects implemented. The main objective of the study was to assess the factors influencing community participation in PADEP community projects. Specifically, the study sought to: determine the level of the community’s participation in PADEP community projects, examine the community’s attitude towards PADEP community projects and determine the overall impacts of PADEP community projects to the community. Across-sectional research design adopted for undertaking the study. A multi-stage sampling was employed whereas purposeful sampling technique used to select four villages i.e. Kiziwa, Mtombozi, Tulo and Kongwa, followed by proportional sampling to get households from each village, and random sampling method to obtain a sample size of 138 households. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect primary data by administering questionnaires, undertaking focus group discussions and key informants’ interview. Quantitative data were analyzed by the statistical package for social sciences, and qualitative data were analyzed by using content analysis. The study findings revealed that the level of participation in PADEP community projects was relatively low especially in project identification and designing stages. Nevertheless, about 93.5% of respondents had positive attitudes towards PADEP projects because of associated benefits, including rise of household income. Study results, also indicated that implemented PADEP community projects made some impacts to households’ livelihood, include assets ownership, income as well as food security improvement. Furthermore, some independent variables had statistical significant influence on community participation, including respondent’s previous experience in projects participation (p≤0.05), household size, household income per year before the project (p≤0.1), level of satisfaction (p≤0.01), awareness / information (p≤0.1) and existence of village rules and regulation on participation (p≤0.05). In conclusion, there is positive and strong relationship between previous experience and community participation; household income and community participation; awareness and community participation. Considering the importance of community participation, study suggests that all obstacles including project’s experience, awareness and household income which hinder community participation should be well addressed by the project implementers for the success and sustainability of the projects.

Description

A Dissertation

Keywords

Agricultural development, Community participation, Projects, Morogoro District, Tanzania

Citation