Community Participation Methods and their Influence on Effective Community Participation in Development Programs in Tanzania

Abstract

It is the wish of every stakeholder to see to it that development programs are successful and beneficial to the intended community. Literature shows that successful development programs must provide opportunities for the intended program beneficiaries to effectively participate in the programs. This implies that program beneficiaries ought to be seen as stakeholders in the program and not as recipients of final program results. This is a community engagement thinking deeply rooted in the stakeholder theory. Hence, by taking into account the importance of community participation in development programs, this study explored community participation methods that were being employed in four different categorized programs and how such methods were influencing effective participation in such programs in Tanzania. These programs were categorized as Locally Funded, Government Funded, Donor Funded and Joint Funded development programs. A combined sample size of 316 participants from all the four programs was employed. Collected data were analyzed through the within-case analysis and the comparative analysis approaches. Results of the study revealed that methods used in Government funded programs were not effective enough in promoting effective community participation when compared to methods used in the other three examined programs. As such, the study concluded by emphasizing on the need to improve on the participation methods used in Government funded programs.