Effect of participatory planning on development; case study: Sironko district local government

Abstract

The study focused on the effect of Participatory Planning on development in Sironko District Local Government. The study was guided by three objectives; to establish the involvement of stakeholders in the participatory planning, to examine the responsibility of various key actors in the participatory planning and to analyze the performance of participatory planning in development A case study research design was employed to investigate in detail the effect of participatory planning on development in Sironko District Local Government. The findings of the study revealed that Participatory Planning has greatly led to team work between the community and the technical staff; it also enhanced accountability for public assets. Ensures work transparency because the budgets, work plans are shared in detail above all the planned action framework is also shared. It also, enabled increased involvement of other actors like the civil society as well as elders, opinion leaders; these take part in the whole process. It is therefore a vehicle towards alignment of planning. There is a tendency to move as one among the key actors; this shared position helps to stem up challenges to implementation, both the good and bad are shared in equal measure and therefore ownership is improved which is key in operation and maintenance of the facilities. Therefore basing on the findings, the study concluded that there is a relationship between participatory planning and development. 85% of the respondents agreed that there is relationship between the two; this is besides fostering team work and unity. The recommendation was that the key actors in mobilization of the community to participate at the lowest level are the Parish Development Committees, that deliberate effort be undertaken to build their capacity to adequately live up to the challenge of mobilizing communities. That there is also need to build the capacity of the technical staff to ably facilitate the process of Participatory Planning but not to act as extension service providers with one side dimension of imparting knowledge, but rather appreciate that under participatory planning, the communities are much aware of the peculiarities which should be given opportunity to be raised. There is need to maintain the bottom up planning process and schedules be designed to cater for this dichotomy. Besides, the feedback mechanism should be strengthened on the whole process before another project cycle is initiated. It emerged during the study that there was no adequate feedback on project implementation. Finally, there is need to widen the mode of mobilization and involvement through radio to encourage more issues being brought on board, opinion/religious leaders be encouraged to participate meaningfully.