Confronting the challanges and barriers to community participation in rural development initiatives in Buhera district, Ward 12 Zimbabwe

Community participation in rural development is widely recognized as a basic operational principle of rural development, although debates about this concept are fervent. Beneficiaries of community projects have been seen as consumers of services, and their role in rural development has been accorded less importance. Community participation has been limited to consultation, thereby stifling the creative capabilities and potential of community members at all levels of the society. A descriptive case study design was used to collect primary data in addition to secondary data. Questionnaires were administered to participants selected through proportionate sampling to ensure representation and stratification at all levels. Two hundred respondents were interviewed. The data collected was analyzed numerically and descriptively and is presented in the sum of text and tables. The study revealed that there is relatively low degree of community influence or control over organizations in which community members participate, especially given that the services are usually controlled by people who are not poor or recipients of services. Community members are usually going through an empty ritual of participation; hence they have no real power needed to affect the outcome of rural development process. The study noted that participatory rural development has no predetermined outcomes; it can lead to transformation and change in the social patterns and sometimes it perpetuates and trigger the antithesis of ‘community liberation,’ devolution and distribution of power among various stakeholders. Thus, the form of participation in rural development initiatives in Buhera has transformed and modified the relations of power that objectify and subjugate people, leaving them without a voice. The study recommended that community participation should be centered on the role of the community as primary actors who should be allowed and enabled to influence and share the responsibility (and possibly costs) of rural development process.