Determinants Of Community Participation In Agricultural Projects In Tanzania: A Case Of Mali-Mbichi Mviwata Supported Project In Morogoro District

ABSTRACT

The study’s main aim was to determine community participation in Mali-mbichi

MVIWATA supported project in Morogoro District. The specific objectives of the study

were to assess interventions done by MVIWATA in Mali-mbichi project, to assess

community participation in Mali-mbichi project cycle and to determine factors affecting

community participation in Mali-mbichi project. The study was conducted in two villages

(Tandai and Kalundwa) in Kinole ward as the sole beneficiaries of the project. A crosssectional

research design was adopted whereby data was collected using a questionnaire

from 120 beneficiaries of Mali-mbichi project. Moreover, there were 13 FGDs

participants and 5 Key informants. The analysis of quantitative data was done using the

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while content analysis was used to analyse

qualitative data. It was found that Mali-mbichi members were well participated in

interventions of the project. However, there were some factors affecting their participation

such as lack of economic support, restrictions of husbands to wives, personal

commitments, poor community leadership, conflict of interest, time consuming during

implementation which led most of members not being able to participate fully during the

project implementation. Moreover, inferential analysis indicated that all six identified

factors have a significant statistical (P ≤ 0.05) with participation in the project. Among

these six variables only five (lack of economic support, restrictions of husbands to wives,

personal commitments, poor community leadership and time consuming) were found to

contribute negatively to community participation in the project, and one variable (conflict

of interest) was found to have positive influence. It is concluded that, in Mali-mbichi

project there is good participation with poor impact on the result of participation.

Therefore, it is recommended that MVIWATA and other NGOs should not only focus on

participation but also consider the impact of their participation on whether members

really benefit from participating in the project or not.