The Determinants and Benefits of Community Participation in TASAF Project. A Case Study Temeke Municipality.

The specific objectives of this study are; to find out the factors affecting the community involvement in planning and implementation of TASAF development projects; to identify the benefits of community participation in TASAF projects; and to examine the challenges faced by the project managers in ensuring community participation in project execution. The study used sample unit of 79 respondents who were selected using purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The study used interview and questionnaire to collect data and all data were analyzed by using scientific methods of data analysis such as SPSS. The findings indicated that, beneficiaries are not full involved in the planning and implementation of the project. Education level, gender issues, political issues, management attitude, information sharing, local community’s perception and other approaches used to sensitize community participation were identified as the determinants of community participation in TASAF projects. Furthermore, the results indicated different benefits of community participation including; community sense of ownership, clear identification of community needs and solutions, sustainability of the project, combating exclusion of marginalized population, empowers people and mobilize resources ,increases accountability and responsibility. The results also revealed different challenges including; low budget, lack of clear understanding of the project benefits, old age of beneficiaries, long process of identifying the beneficiaries, delay of cash transfer, reduction of the beneficiaries from the project, the needy are not included, small benefits which do not cover the needs, illiteracy of the beneficiaries, lack of receiving information on time. Community Participation in Planning and Implementation of Development Project