Participation of Females in Communication for Development by Migori County Government, Kenya

Abstract

Participation is key to the success of communication for development. Failure to institute the participation of key change agents in development result to ineffective outcome of development projects. The purpose of this study was to establish participation of females in communication for development by Migori County government. The study was guided by Gidden's structuration theory. Exploratory research was employed as a research design for the study. Data was collected through interview responses from the county director of gender, 2 ward administrators, 15 leaders of 10 women groups, 10 members of 10 women groups found in Nyatike and Kuria East Sub counties. Focus group discussion involving 8 women and 7women in Nyatike and Kuria East respectively was also conducted. The total number of participants for the study was 43. Data was also collected through document analysis of the genderpolicy, Migori County Integrated Development Plan and communication for development messages from radio Milambo. The county director of gender and the leaders of women groups were purposively sampled to take part in the study, the other women - members of the registered groups were chosen through snow ball sampling, the ward administrators were chosen through simple random sampling. The reliability of the instrument was tested through Cohen Kappa Method to test reliability of themes from the inter-rater. Data was analysed through thematic analysis. Data was presented in form of themes and pie-charts .The study found out that females in Migori County rarely participate in communication for development and the few times they do participate, it is at the level of information sharing. The study recommends that gender mainstreaming should be considered as an important component of communication for development for Migori County government to realise its development objectives for the females. Exclusive meetings for females should be instituted so as to enable effective participation of females. In addition, the county government should have a database of all the women groups in the county to facilitate communication with the groups.