Grassroots Participation for Infrastructural Provisioning in Northwest Cameroon: Are Village Development Associations the Panacea?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Local communities are the loci of spatial development initiatives as they wrestle with the problem of resource scarcity and to fill the void left by the reduction in state services. This paper explores the gender dimension of grassroots participation in community development in selected localities of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. It outlines the gender roles and biases of grassroots participation through Village Development Associations (VDAs), which have become the prevalent vehicles for the galvanization of indigenous resource and building of social and human capital for project execution. Projects successfully executed include the construction of bridges and community halls, renovation of school buildings and health centres, digging and maintenance of earth roads, and the provision of pipe-borne water. In spite of communitarian efforts, VDAs are finding it difficult to embark on large-scale infrastructural development projects such as rural electrification, road construction, water supply and health centres, all of which require huge capital investments and a high degree of technical expertise. Participation is also affected by a litany of gender-based inequalities, mismanagement, ambiguous and vested interests of the elite, and complex operational structures of VDAs coupled with a politicized institutional environment. The paper concludes that although VDAs are not the cure-all, if revitalized, they can determine the local development agenda and become conduits for direct efforts at poverty reduction.