FACTORS INFLUENCING COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN PROJECT PLANNING IN KENYA. A CASE STUDY OF MBUCANA WATER DAM PROJECT, KIAMBU COUNTY

Abstract

The concept of community participation in development gained prominence in development discourse in the seventies and since then literature on the subject has grown dramatically. The incorporation of the locals in development projects has become a common phenomenon that almost every organization talks about. Related literature shows that there is very little scope of participation for common people in decision making, management and supervision of many community based development projects. Since independence thousands of development projects have been implemented by popularly elected leaders, out of which some have failed to produce desired outcome. Poor villagers still live in misery and deprivation; their basic human needs are not fulfilled. Their lifestyle is not improved as much as it was expected. The participatory practice has not yet been cultured properly. Project information is hardly disseminated to the community people. An effective evaluation system has not been fully institutionalized to capture the opinions of the real project beneficiaries. In the entire Citizen’s report cards recommendations are always made to the development partners to involve the community in project planning and throughout the project cycle to enhance ownership of the projects by the community in line with the new constitution. This study is aimed at looking at some of the pertinent issues of community participation in the construction of the Bucana water dam. The study adopted a descriptive research in which data was gathered through questionnaires. The study was comprised of eighty six (86) respondents on a target population of members of the three villages; Kiriko, Kanyoni and Bucana Villages in Gatundu North Constituency in Kiambu County. The study used simple random sampling method to select the households who will be partially or full displaced. A content analysis and descriptive analysis was being employed.