Journal On Participation

INTRODUCTION

This assignment on the concept of participation will examine and discuss the concept basing on the following guidelines:

☼ Definition of the term participation
☼ Types of participation
☼ Levels and Modes of participation
☼ Importance of participation in CED and poverty alleviation.
☼ Principles and obstacles of participation
☼ Relevancy of participation in the Tanzania context.
☼ Conclusion based on lesson learned and my own opinions.























DEFINITION OF THE TERM PARTICIPATION
According to Mohamed A. Rahman (1981) participation is considered to be an active process, meaning that the person or group in question takes initiatives and asserts his/her or its autonomy to do so. On the other way, participation includes people’s involvement programs……..their sharing in the benefits of development programs and their involvement in efforts to evaluate such programs. F.A.N Lisk (1981)
Participation can play part in different situations in our daily life, and that make it to have specific meanings in certain areas. In decision making, it is a notion in theory of management , economics, and politics. In terms of ownership, it means sharing something in common with others. Participation in terms of finance means getting some benefit from the performance of a certain underlying asset.
At one extreme , participation is viewed as further colonial eradication of indigenous and endogenous culture and society. At the other extreme, it is viewed as the thin edge of the wedge of a new conceptual paradigm, one which mediates a radical transfer of power from the strong (Socio-economically) to the weak!
In terms of development aspects, participation is a kind of dialogue “during which the agenda is jointly set and local views and indigenous knowledge are deliberately sought and respected” (Gorman, 1995 , 30). People are viewed as partners and actors of their own development (Scheneider and Libercicer, 1995:10). The emphasis is often on process rather than product, the poor as subject rather than the poor objects. Participation suggests an equality between beneficiaries of a development and those who fund and organize the process, and that decisions will not be made without the beneficiaries in put! Participation means different people, but always refers to the active involvement of intended beneficiaries in the development strategy.

TYPES OF PARTICIPATION
There are ten types of participation. These types are:-
☼ Transitive participation:- In this type members action oriented type of participation.
☼ Moral participation:- This type is the opposite of transitive participation.
☼ Moral participation:- This type of participation is based on ethics but have positive pursuit.
☼ A- moral participation:- This type of participation is neutral i.e. it is not moral and it is not immoral, this
☼ Is based on doing things for the sake of doing it, and nothing to loose.

☼ In moral participation:- This involves doing things for the sake of doing it, and nothing
to loose.
☼ Immoral participation:- This involves doing things which are not acceptable e.g crime,
prostitution etc.
☼ Coercive participate: this is exercised by Military Juntas and regime. For example you
can be forced to kill somebody.
☼ Voluntary participation:- People volunteer themselves to participate.
☼ Manipulated participation:- Is used mainly in politics.
☼ Spontaneous participation:- People are involved in a project just because it is beneficial
to them, but they are not the one who initiated the project.

LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION:

There are certain levels of participations; usually people participate in different levels. These levels are such as passive participation. This one is a top down participation, in this, participants may not be allowed to express themselves.
Another level, is participation by information giving. In this level of participation, people are participating by answering questions brought by external researchers, conducted by methodology of field research such as questionnaires, observation and interviews. People don’t have opportunity to share, neither checked by those respondents whether the findings are precise or not. Another level is participating by being consulted by being asked questions and external professional find out both their problems and solutions and modify them if necessary.
Another level is participation by material incentives, such as money, food, gifts etc. people participate by providing their local resources such as labor, land, farms etc. another level of participation is functional participation, people participate by forming group to meet pre-determined objectives related to the project.

MODES OF PARTICIPATION

There are several ways people can participate in community development programs. These are called modes of participation. People can participate Materially, can participate Mentally, physically and financially.


IMPORTANCE OF PARTICIPATION IN CED AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION

People’s participation is an indispensable part of any programs or project encouraged by national governments, World Bank, UN agencies and Non governmental organizations. despite differing perspectives, these agencies, all agree that, people’s participation should be encouraged. Actions by the poor to influence decision making through direct and informal means have emerged as an alternative way by which they can gain admission to decision making and access to resources and thereby improve their well being.
There are various reasons why people’s participation is deemed desirable from the point of view of development agencies and governments:-
☼ People has the right to participate in decision making which directly affects their living
conditions.
☼ Social development can be promoted by increasing local self-reliance since people
themselves knows best what they need.
☼ People have a right to participate in decision making which directly affects their living
conditions.
☼ The project area can continue to be developed even after the withdrawal of the
development facilitators.
☼ Can increase social political control between the people and the government has chance
to work together.

Community development programs is a set of activities planned by the people, themselves, emanating from their quality of life, and they have entire ownership, and control over the benefits accruing from such activities. Community participation is the central core in bringing about community development.

People coming together to participate, ensures community spirit and motivation towards achievement of, their own economic development peoples participation also mobilizes soci-aenergy and local resources, and it creates sense of ownership, it also ensures sustainability and replicability and support system.





PRINCIPLES OF PARTICIPATION
In order for people to participate full in community development programs, some of the principles should be should be adhered to:-
☼ All the participation process should be voluntary this means, should be democratic and should be based on willingness.
☼ The participation process, should carry an autonomous element i.e should be self propelling and people should have the power to make decision.
☼ The participation process should be involve all classes of people in the community i.e it should be not create classes of people, it should based on equity and should involve all classes of people in the community i.e it should be holistic. It should not create classes of people, it should based on equity and should be gender sensitive.

OBSTRACLES OF PARTICIPATION
The following are the main obstacles that hinder people to participate in community economic development:-
☼ Operational obstacles:- This includes over centralized planning, inadequate delivery
mechanism lack of local co-ordination, irrelevant project contents, and lack of local
structure.
☼ Cultural obstacles:- The rural community sense of marginalization dependency and
oppression, extending from historical tradition, brings about fear to co-operate with
external agents.
☼ Structural obstacle:- This is brought about by the dictation of both local, National and International collaborators, dictating on the terms in which participation can be carried out in the community. It is a fact that most Countries the dominant relation of power and production and the ideological value legitimizing them constitute powerful structural obstacles to the promotion of popular participation. In UNRISD’s terms these are the structural and ideologies of “anti-participation” Since they help to perpetuate grossly unequal access to and control over social wealth and power. It is argued that the persistence of these anti-participatory structures has caused the failure of many local level initiatives to promote participation. The structure dictates the terms of participation and dictates the terms of participation and reacts oppressively if those terms are re-defined; aims to keep the rural people in their places, as labor power as well as consumers.
☼ Inadequate management capacity:- If the management is not capable of managing community development activities, the participation process fails before achieving any outcomes.
☼ Ignoring community capacity and ability:- Rural people have local knowledge and experiences to manage their local environment, outsider should not ignore the local or indigenous knowledge, the community should be allowed to express their views and identifying resources and opportunities for solving their problems (O8OD).

☼ Inadequate Resources in terms of manpower and financial resources to acquire some
of the inputs to their projects.
☼ In consistent Policy implementation:- Frequent change of developmental policies may
lead to disrupt community on going community participation or projects.
☼ Lack of Awareness:- People can be reluctant to participate in community projects,
because they are not well informed and sensitized.
☼ Conflict within the community:- If there is conflict among the members of the
community, coordination and organization of self-help projects becomes difficult.

RELEVANCY OF PARTICIPATION IN THE TANZANIA CONTEXT

The concept of participation has been observed in Tanzania through the ideology of socialism and self-reliance, initiated by the founder of the Nation the late President Julius K. Nyerere just after the attainment of independence in 1961. socialism was taken as a viable tool to foster social equality as well as equitable distribution of the national wealth.
The socialism and self-reliance ideology was persuied, and in 1967, the Arusha declaration was brought forward, to strengthen the socialism and self reliance ideology, by putting restrictions on individual wealth accumulation and code of ethics to government leaders, barring them to use their positions to embezzle public wealth communal work was very much encouraged and insisted, this led to the mobilization of the rural communities to re-settle in what was called Ujamaa villages, with the same objective of participatory mobilization resources and easy distribution of benefits among the village members. This ideology of socialism faces a lot of short coming both institutional as well as structural factors. Most importantly, it has also suffered external pressures and discouragement from the capitalist western economies, which were struggling much to suppress the socialism and communism economies of the south.
Nevertheless in a Country like Tanzania which is very poor and underdeveloped, the concept of communal participation in mobilizing locally available resources to solve social community needs is to be encouraged and supported..
Learning from experiences of the previous years, now community participation in Tanzania has been improved using different approaches; for example PRA, and O8OD.
Programs like building more schools in the villages and wards, through community participation, along side government mobilization and support, are just among many other projects initiated, and recorded considerable success. Programmers like PADEP, TASAF and many others, formulated by professional technocrats, efforts should be made to provide full knowledge and awareness of the programs to the targeted community and later provide full autonomy in terms of ownership and implementation process. But on implementation, though there are some guidelines which are already in place from the main document of the general program.


CONCLUSION

Many social studies suggest that the involvement of social groups/communities in participatory undertakings has in many cases bared good results. But the process can only bear good results if basic principles are adhered to. The leading four participatory principles are:-

- The process should be voluntary, this means, should be democratic and should be based on willingness.
- The process should, carry an autonomous element i.e should be self propelling and people should have the power to make decision.
- The process should be self sustainable, should avoid sudden discontinuation decisions.
- The process should involve all classes of people in the community; it should not create classes of people, and should be gender sensitive.

Participation encourage sharing of responsibilities among community members and thus fostering development process. It ensures that real needs of the community is defined, and strategies to meet the needs are developed jointly. The process increases moral and sense of ownership which leads to self-help in fighting poverty. In Tanzania, participation in dressing communal needs, had been encouraged since independence. Many rural communal participation schemes were undertaken for example, irrigation schemes, building schools, dispensaries etc.
The government should continue to encourage participation, as well as empowering the rural people by providing necessary technical assistance, good leadership and management.







REFERENCE

1. Barkey, S. (1975) People first: A guide to self reliant participatory Rural Development.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/participation.
3. Michael Lithgow: Participatory Development and CED, an overview (with a case study of an unlicensed safe injection site) CED 2001.
4. Oaldey G & C Co. (1984) approaches to participation in rural development programs.
5. Yair Levi & Howard B. (1992): Community and cooperation in participation Great Britain.