PARTICIPATION

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION
DEFINITION OF PARTICIPATION
TYPES OF PARTICIPATION
PRINCIPLES OF PARTICIPATION
LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION
STEPS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
IMPORTANCE OF PARTICIPATION
PROBLEMS LUIDERING THE PARTICIPATION
CONCLUSION
REFERENCE







INTRODUCTION

The journal paper will examine participation as approach used in community Economic Development programmers: To achieve his, it will be divided into various subtitles as stipulated in the table of content.
The entry point in this is will be the definition of participation according to United National report (1979:225) and Stan Bur key (2004). Upon definition the concept, he paper will embark an explaining the types of participation and its principles.
The levels of participation will then be provided. In thus case, we shall explore levels of participation. For each level we shall explain how people participate in any given project.
Under the steps of community participation we shall provide the procedures involving project from its inception to adaptation stage and how people get the opportunity to participate at each step.
We shall them have a look at importance of participation to the community Economic Development programmers and the problems underling the participation.
Finally, we shall conclude our work by giving more emphases on the need to involve people at all stages of project development.


2. DEFINITION OF PARTICIPATION
According to United National report (1979:225) participation is defined as “sharing by people in the benefits of development, active contribution by people to development and movement of the people in decision –making at all levels of society”
Sten Burkey (2004), defined Participation as an essential part of human growth that leads into development of self –confidence, pride, initiative, creativity, responsibility and cooperation.
Miller GD (1990) defined participation in terms of improvement and stated that “Participation is the process of maintaining and controlling the resources and the factors necessary for health and productive life.

3. TYPES OF PARTICIPATION
The are ten types of participation:
3.1. Transitive Participation – In this type of participation, members have specific goal or
Objective to achieve it is action oriented type of participation.

3.2. Intransitive Participation –members have n specific goal to achieve but they are
Involved to is the opposite pursuit.

3.3. Moral Participation – based on ethics and positive pursuit.

3.4. A moral participation – this is neutral in the sense that it neither moral nor immoral.
Here, things are done for their own sake and therefore there is nothing to lose.

3.5. Immoral participation – this is based on doing things which are not generally
Accepted by the society. Such things include prostitutions, crime etc.

3.6. Coercive participation – this where the participants are forced to do things which
They do not want to do. It is mainly exercised in military. For example, in a war a solder may be forced to kill somebody.
3.7. Voluntary participation – In this type of participation, people volunteer to participate
Themselves. It is right opposite of coercive participation.

3.8. Manipulated participation – In this type of participation, the subjects are convinced
in certain activity in such away that they see it as their own. For instance, during
Election, the politicians try to use a convincing language in order to attract more
Electorate.

3.9. Spontaneous participation – In this type of participation, the participations are
Involved without their knowledge. For instance, a taxi driver who is hured by they to
go and a break into somebody house, participate in robbery without is knowledge.

3.10. Instrumental participation -In this type of participation, people are involved
Because, the project proves to be beneficial to then however, they were not involved
in it initiation. So people are first used as instruments.

4. PRINCIPLES OR PARTICIPATION

4.1. Participation should be voluntary. The means that participation should be based on
the willingness of the participations. In this case, the democratic principles should be
applied.

4.2. Participation should be autonomous - In type of participation, people are self –pro
Pelled as they develop the proved to make their own decisions-self action ideas are
emphasized.

4.3. Participation should be continuous – this means that participation is self –generative
and dynamic.

4.4. Participation should be wholism – In should not create classes of people. It is
therefore based or equally. By so doing, participation becomes gender sensitive.

4.5. Participation should be realistic. Here is where the goals of participation are
achievable.

5. LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION.

5.1. Participation
This is a to-dopion, participation. At this level people participation by answering
question brought by external researcher. People hesitate to express themselves due to
fear.

5.2. Participation by information giving
In this case, people participate by answering question brought by the researchers.
Methods of data collection are a applied here such as questionnaires, interview and
Focus group discussion. At this level, the participants d o not have he opportunity to
influence the finding since they are not involved in the sharing of the outcome.

5.3. Paticipation by consultation
In this level, people participate by being consulted through being asked questions
by the researchers. In this case, the consultation process does not give out any share
in decision making.

5.4. Participation by material Incentives
In this level people participate by providing their local resources such as labor,
Land, farms etc. and in return they get cash, food and other materials incentive.




5.5. Functional Participation
In this level, people participate by forming groups to meet predetermined
Project related to the project. Local people involvement does not tend to be at the
early stages of project cycle but rather after decision have been made.

5.6. Interactive Participation
In this level, people participate in joint analysis; analysis the situations of the
Community and fire ling out the problems together. The joint analyses leads to action plans and also lead to the formation of new local institution which strengthen the existing ones in order to tackle their problems.
5.7. Self-mobilization
People participate by taking initiatives, independent upon external institutions to change system. They developed contacts with external institutions for resources and technical advice that they heed. People also manage fully reutilization of available resources and participate by collection actions.

STEP OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

The following steps are followed in community participation
6.1. Community identity is problem.
Upon identity problem, the set out to discuss the causes of such problem.
6.2. Community priority the problems. They decide to on the problems to be solved first.
6.3. Community identity opportunities to solve the problems.
This is done with reference to locally available resources.
6.4. Community develop community actions plan (CAP) and implement the agreed upon action.
6.5. Community monitors and supervises the implementation and evaluates the outcome.



IMPORTANCE OF PARTICIPATION TO THE COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME.

7.1. Makes the community /Village Action plans relevant to local situation
Participation help to break the mentality of action/work and instead it promotes self awareness and confidence, making people examine their problems and to think positively about the situations.
7.2. Ensure sustainability and reliability
It is widely argued that externally motivated development project frequently fail to sustain themselves once the initial level of project support or imparts either diminishes or it is withdraw. Participation is seen as the altitude to this situation in that it can ensure that local people maintain the projects dynamic. Argument which link sustainability with participation are legally economic but others touch on issues of projects ownership, political support and the maintenance of delwey systems.
7.3. Reduces cost by using locally available resources efficiently.
Participation implies greater chances that resources available to development project will be used more efficiently. Participation help to minimize misunderstanding or possible disagreement and thus the time and energy, often spent by professional staff explaining or convincing people of a projects, benefits, can be reduced.
Participation is also cost- effective since if people are taking responsibility for a project then fewer experience outside resources will be required and highly paid professional staff, will not get tied down in the detail of project administration.
7.4. Promote self-help and self reliance effectively.
Participation will make projects more effectively. As instrument of development participation allows people to have a choice in determining objective, to support project administration and to make their local knowledge and skills or project.
7.5. Promote partnership between community, Village and support system (donors,
NGO’s e.t.c.)
Though Non-government Organizations (NGO’s), Donors existing community organization can be guided to exert pressures on government, in order to encompass joint decision –making it is argued that NGO’s provide effectively opportunities for the implementation of community participation ideas and these organizations are more likely to promote alternation forms of participation than the strake.
7.6. Leads to capacity building
People have rights to participate in decision- making which directly affects their living conditions. Also they have been demonstrating that the people and the government can work together and make political capital in order to promote capacity building among the community members.
7.7. Create sense of ownership and builds self- esteem.
Since people themselves know best what they need, what they want and what they can afford, community participation can, lead to people if effectiveness.
The project continues to develop even after the withdrawal of the development agency staff.
7.8. Ensures community motivation and support.
The purpose of community participation is to increase unity and solidarity.
Mobilization as a key input in the community can increase poor people’s bargaining power, including their input into the local decision making process.
7.9. Empowerment through decision making.
Participation is a voluntary action by individual community members towards the development in kind, cash or materials. As people get involved in decision making process, they fed more empowered.
7.10. Promote gender sensations.
Participation can be achieved successfully at all levels of development Programme; it should be considered the gender balance in order to empower gender sensitization in the community /society.
7.11. Mobilizes socio-energy and local resources such as locally available resources like leadership, labour, materials e.t.c. are mobilized. Through participation therefore social capital is directed to the meaningful economic production.
8. PROBLEMS HINDERING THE PARTICIPATION
IN COMMUNITY ECONIMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGAMMES.

8.1. Inadequate management capacity
The is no doubt that implementation of any project requires skilled and committed personal and good management team. But in case where there are no enough skill and capacity to implement promote participatory approaches in the community /society, the project is likely to fail.

8.2. Ignoring community capacity and capability
Most developing countries have dependably have depended much or extended assistance to fulfill is capability in order to enable people or communities to reach their goals due to lack of community capacity to facilitate the community economic development Programme.

8.3. Inconsistent policy implementation
Most of the development policies for mutated are charaderiped by commanding approach that is top-down approach. These policies are formulated without the consent of the majority. In this care, people are not involved in the whole process of policy formulation from the stage of identification to the formulation of the best course.

8.4. Inadequate resources in terms of manpower and finance
The resources expected to be used in the implementation of the community development programmers are not enough to develop the project programmers. In most cares a lot of money from the national budget is not enough to meet all the national priorities.
8.5. Conflicts without the community
Conflicts of interest are always present to some extent in all of the social systems. It is more evident in the political field. No society is free from conflicts but the extent to which it occurs matters a lot. In most of he social system, conflicts institutionalized ruled.
8.6. Uncoordinated community activities
The sense of powerless may be due to the non inclusion of the people in creating, the community activities. Lack of coordinated activities leads to under utilization of methods which may help people to participate in the research, decision making implementation and evaluation of a development programmer.
8.7. Lack of awareness
Many rural development programmers may fail because the so called beneficiaries in assessment of needs and identification of problems. Rural people perceptions and solutions are often overlooked while sharing of information.

9. CONCLUSION
The success of any project depend an the extent to which community was
Involved, that is, through participation. The efficient and effective participation
local people, local leaders, local, government agencies and central government
will also depend, on their ability in terms of mental, physical and financial
Capability.
The assumption that the agency dealing with the community is aware of
the community problems under Direct Approach should not be ache red so. So the
planning, implementation, monitoring and evolution should so done by people
within the community hosting the project. Any attempt to ignore the sense of
belonging and see the project as “theirs” as opposed to “ours’.

9. REFERENCE

1) Batten, T.A. (1957): Communities and Their Development; Oxford University Press, Amman House London E. C. 4, U.K.
2) Peter .Oakley (1995): People Participation in Development Project Nairobi, Kenya.
3) Lee J. Cary (1970): Community Developmental a process, University of Missouri, Colombia.
4) United States Gout (1956): Community development Guidelines, Washington D.C.