Community Participation in Urban Road Infrastructure Development Projects: The Case of Wolkite Town, Ethiopia

F.M. Zeliku¹

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.8 , Issue.12 , pp.17-27, Dec-2022

Online published on Dec 31, 2022

Copyright © F.M. Zeliku . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The purpose of this study was to examine community participation in road infrastructure development projects in Wolkite Town, Ethiopia. The survey used a convergent mixed research design. A total of 366 households,3 focus group discussions and 9 key informant interviews were held to elicit information for this study. Data were analyzed through the use of SPSS version 20 and presented in frequency and percentage tables accordingly. The study found that the level of community participation in Road infrastructure development projects was remained low. Besides the majority of community members were not aware of their roles and responsibilities in road development projects and that urban residents were generally not actively involved in decision making, planning, monitoring and evaluation processes. Findings also revealed that the institutional structures installed by the Town administration for community participation initiatives were highly fragmented and not functional. The major challenges that hindered community participation in road infrastructure development were lack of awareness, poor coordination and communication between local authorities and communities, weak institutional structures and lack of resources. The paper concluded that for effective community participation in road infrastructure development activities it is crucial to overcome barriers to participation and creating ownership of development decisions and projects which contribute to the sustainability of road infrastructure.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Community Participation, Challenges, Road Infrastructure, Wolkite Town

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