Department of Rural and Regional Planning of the Institute of Rural Development Planning, Dodoma, Tanzania

According to this report, participation has now become an established orthodoxy in development thinking and practice; however, the concept is not always clearly defined. This document seeks to unpack the concept of participation by looking at how participation was realised in two World Vision Tanzania (WVT) development projects that took place in different time periods. It focuses on what have been the perceptions of participation, the nature and extent of stakeholders’ participation, and issues promoting and those hindering stakeholders’ participation in the two WVT development programmes in rural Tanzania, one in Mundemu and the other in Mpunguzi.

The authors examine how participation is perceived among local communities and how they participate in this non-governmental organisation (NGO)'s development interventions in their communities. They outline how 'community participation' in the studied programmes takes on different forms in various stages of the project cycle. The authors find that the nature and extent of participation for the majority of local communities in both programmes is generally limited to information giving, consultation, and contribution. Local communities are generally not actively involved in decision making, planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes.

The authors conclude that as participation of local communities in these interventions is generally limited to 'contribution', the process is therefore not 'empowering' the local communities to take control of the development process. Specifically, this form of participation offers limited space for local communities to engage themselves in the development process and is dependent upon the amount and degree of diversity of representation that takes place during the various stages of projects. As such, some community groups like children, women, people with disabilities, and the elderly seem not to be adequately represented and/or have no voice in these decision-making structures.

The document outlines some key factors that facilitate the promotion of participation. These include:

• NGO presence at the grassroots;
• NGO long-term commitment in working with the economically poor;
• staff with knowledge and skills of participatory approaches;
• continuous community sensitisation and mobilisation;
• perceptions that interventions being implemented are addressing participants' needs; and
• participation of secondary and key stakeholders such as government agencies and other NGOs.

The authors also identify some key factors inhibiting participation:

• Poverty was seen to be the main factor limiting local communities' participation.
• Limited use of participatory approaches was a second factor - approaches used were Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Appreciative Inquiry Approach (AI), and Community Capacity Indicators (CCI). These were used at no other time than at project inception and during some community leaders' and representatives’ workshops.
• Contradictory policies and approaches of different agencies working in the same area were combined as the third factor inhibiting participation.

Eldis website on August 11 2008.