Community Participation Essay

LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
This chapter reviews the existing relevant literature on participation and decentralized development planning. It is organized in two main sections. The first section broadly discusses the perception of participation and the theoretical basis offered for understanding effective participation. It will also present the relevance and challenges of participation while highlighting the strategies that ensure effective participation. The second section will focus primarily on the decentralized development planning as pertained to Ghana in term of structure, process and the role of communities. It will also include a brief review of Awutu Senya East Municipal Assembly’s 2014-2017 MTDP.

2.1.0 Understanding Community

Mathur (1986) argues that the essence of participation is primarily to develop the potential of people to make informed development decision and actions. Lisk (1985) contends that the real impact of participation can be achieved in the planning system. In a much broader sense, participation maximizes efficiency, effectiveness, self-reliance, coverage and sustainability of projects (Mpolokeng, 2003)
Conyers (1986) accounts that proper evaluation of community needs, conditions and attitudes are critical to the success or failure of development projects and programmes and this can be properly achieved through participation. Olujimi and Egunjobi (1991) similarly argue that community participation leads to clear identification of what a community really needs and how it can be provided, resulting in community acceptance for projects and programme. Oakley et al (1991) further consents that such information flow minimizes the possibility of conflicts and waste of scarce

Khwaja for instance in a study conducted in Northern Pakistan found that the limitations of participation are reflected in instances where participants have conflicting positions and decisions have to be democratically made (Khwaja, 2004). This requires proper facilitation to ensure it does not serve as a disincentive for minority groups This may be further exacerbated in developing countries by the existence of different interest groups with diverse needs though resources to address these needs are limited. In effect, if it is not properly managed, it might result in