Gender participation analysis in the context of participatory development approaches in community projects implementation
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Date
2008
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Bottom-up development approach has fostered greater emphasis of the current
popularly accepted participatory methodologies as an important development
strategy tool. Institutionalisation of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and.
opportunities and obstacle to development methodology (O&OD) in Tanzania
underscore the importance of the approach to ensure sustainable community
development particularly at grassroots. However, as PRA and O&OD insist much on
consensus as an indicator of participation, the approaches ignore gender groups and
individuals’ socio-cultural conflicting interests and differences. This study analysed
gender participation basing on the conflicting interests and differences in some of the
projects executed through participatory development approaches. The study was
conducted in two villages of Norini and Machenje in Kongwa district, Dodoma
region, whereby 100 respondents selected randomly were interviewed. Close-ended
and open-ended questionnaires were applied to 68 and 12 individuals respectively.
Checklist and Harvard analytical framework were administered to 20 respondents in
focused group discussions to obtain in-depth perception to the study. The result
indicates that 53% of respondents do not clearly understand what it means by
participatory approach. Women are over-represented and they worked 21 weeks in
average against 12 weeks of men at actual work. Moreover, the factors hereunder
with their influence scales in bracket were found to be the major causes of variation
in gender participation, these are; socio-cultural (0.7), participatory tool application
(0.6). economic (0.5), and nature of the project (0.5). From this study it's
recommended that, participatory methodology and gender analytical framework
should be formalised by PRA activists to facilitate local leaders and the entire
community in defining gender attribute, socio-cultural and economic differences
prior to project execution. Planners should ensure that capacities and capacitating
strategies, in terms of skills and resources to participatory development practitioner
are given priority. Similarly policies should stipulate gender analytical components
as a must criterion for project approval.
Description
Masters Dissertation
Keywords
Gender, Methodologies, Social-cultural, Sustainable community