Factors That Influence Community Participation In Local Government Activities In Maridi County, Central Payam Of Western Equatoria State: South Sudan

Community participation in development programnes is widely recognized as a basic operational principle of development. Community members have been seen as consumers of services and their role in development is equally important. The study was carried out in Maridi County, Central Payam located in Western Equatoria State in the Republic of South Sudan. The study was guided by the general objective if establishing the factors the influence community participation in local government activities. The study adopted a descriptive case study design and used both interviews and questionnaires to collect data from respondents. These respondents were selected using the simple random sampling technique of the lottery method and stratified sampling respectively. The data collected was analyzed numerically and descriptively presented in text and tables. The study found out that there is low community participation in local government activities in Central Payam. The reasons given for this occurrence were that: local government officials are not elected although the Local Governments Act advocates for it; the masses are not involved in local government programmes; there is limited knowledge of local government affairs and that local government officials are inefficient. Findings from the study have a strong bearing with other studies in some countries where community participation in local government activities has also been found to be very low due to lack of information; elite capture, lack of involvement in budgeting and planning activities and excessive corruption among local government officials. The study finally made recommendations that: there is need for more involvement of community members in local government activities if they are going to own the local government and therefore participate in it; local government official should be elected, but not appointed; there is need for community mobilization and that corruption need to be fought and resources be put to proper use.