Factors influencing community participation in planning andimplementing agricultural development projects: case Matongoro cattle auction project in Kongwa District, Tanzania
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Date
2024
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
In Tanzania, different community development projects in various sectors
including agriculture have been formulated and implemented following a
bottom-up approach to reduce poverty and food insecurity among
community members in our country. However, in many cases, the impact
of such projects has not been significant due to various reasons
including poor participation of the targeted population in the process.
This study using the Matongoro cattle auction development project in
Kongwa as a case investigated the factors influencing community
participation in planning and implementing agricultural development
projects. Specifically, identified the social-economic factors that influence
community participation in the planning and implementation of
agricultural projects, assessed the level of community participation in the
planning and implementation of Cattle auction projects, assessed the
strategies used in community participation at the community level and
last to assess the respondents’ attitude of their participation in project
planning and implementation. Methodologically, the study adopted a
cross-sectional research design whereby a questionnaire-based survey
was used to collect primary data from 150 randomly selected
respondents. The above was complemented by four (4) focus group
discussions and nineteen (19) key informant interviews purposively
selected. The study was founded on three theories; Participation theory,
Social capital theory and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Content
analysis, descriptive statistical analysis and binary logistic regression
model were used to analyse qualitative and quantitative data respectively
with the aid of Index scales and the Likert scale to attain more precise
results. As the study findings revealed that nearly 90% of respondents
had low participation. In addition, the critical factors which were found to
significantly influence community participation in cattle auction
development projects at p>0.05 were income level, number of cattle
owned, age, awareness, experience of participation in projects and sex.
Additionally, the study findings show that the non-participatory
approaches were mainly followed in engaging community members in the area. The study results also show that the attitudes of community
members toward the need for their participation were positive but they
perceived negatively the approaches used for their participation in the
process of the project cycle. Based on the findings it can be concluded
that the project implementer utilize a non-participatory approach (top-
down approach) as means of participation among the project
stakeholders during the project implementation as there was inadequate
accessibility of information sharing, collective decision-making and
meetings that were found to be the most severe limitation of possessing
facts and information. Also, the study concluded that the level of
participation in the project by community members was very low, as
there were low social relationships and poor cooperation among the
agro-pastoralists and project implementers. Therefore, the study
recommends that the government should design ways to increase local
community participation throughout the project cycle to ensure the
success and sustainability of community projects and community
development. It also recommends the use of participatory approaches for
ensuring the active participation of community members in the designing
and implementation of community development projects.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Participation, community participation, approach, attitude, development, ownership, project sustainability.