Community Participation in National Addresses and Postcode System Establishment in Tanzania

Abstract

Abstract This study seeks to understand whether the Tanzanian community participated in the establishment of national addresses and postcode systems following the need of the government of Tanzania to establish residential addresses and postcodes through the guidance of the electronic and postal communications act of 2003 for the purpose of identifying streets by indicating specific names and business centers as well as naming the number of houses. Through the participatory theory approach and communication theory, this article analyses the contents which describe the involvement of Tanzanians in establishing the national address and postcode systems. Through in-depth interviews, the study findings indicate that community participation in selecting and establishing names for the streets and post code systems was relatively low. This was characterized by low awareness of the community concerning; less communication within the community through which the project was taking place; within the society; and poor involvement of people within the society. This finding concludes that community participation in any project has the potential for both social and economic development activities within and outside of society.