People are talking loudly about community participation and even funding agencies are emphasizing on that. During the awarding the project agreement the agencies are approving 70 to 80% fund and advising to raise or to manage rest of the fund by community participation. But it is matter of concern, NGO’s who are getting fund are really emphasizing on true manner on participation of community? It is not hard to get the community participation.
But the fact is that, for getting the community participation organization should have to keep the transparency in their account and dealing. They have to call voice of community in their decision making process. They should have to share project budget and expenses with the community on half yearly or yearly basis like shareholder companies. If organization will clearly explain to the community that what is project budget and how much money they will be spend on community development and how much as project running cost, community will merely involved in the project activities, they will passionately take part in program by taking the ownership of whole project, thus in real sense the community participation is not a big deal. The real fact is that very few organizations are there who have concerned about community participation. To chop the project money and to make adjustment in activity budget, most of the project implementer even doesn’t want to show their project budget and budget allocation within their staff, then where is the community? If in real sense someone will go for check it will generally observed that 50 to 70% of money was spend as project running cost and only 30 to 40 % on community or field activities. And then these people are shouting that they are not getting community participation, community wants free assets or free assistance without doing anything. They like to blame the community for the failure of the project.
It has happen that the project implementer raised the bills of those works which carried out by the community participation. That’s why many time community people have doubt, they are asking that what is the proof of our participation, may be you will raised the bill of our work in project and grab the money. I think the doubt of community is valid at their level.
Office asked me to install the machinery at Agriculture Business Centre when I asked about the budget they informed me that there is no budget for installation, only there is budget for material and technical person and not for unskilled labour. I have to take participation from community for installation. I carried out the installation, the rice huller, nut cracker, palm oil press, etc. community people participated very actively though there was raining, small children’s carried out stones on their head, old people were also shared their labour to lift up the 420 to 500 kg machinery parts from storage centre to place of installation. They asked for some incentive or food, even I thought that after work may be if there is provision of food, we cook and will eat like get-together, it will help to create one bondage between project officials and community people, but it was not happened. Even I was not aware about the project budget for installation of Machines, may be they will raise fake bills of labour costs to grab the money. At the end of the day I thought what proof of their participation is. What direct or indirect benefit they have from Business centre. If the project is planned for the development of whole village, then why only 10 to 15 people taking part and not whole village.
Definitely because of some of greedy project implementer the concept of community participation is get damaged, sometime people start something with good humor but community people get suspect, they thought that, definitely there is some budget provision in the work but by taking community participation the person wants to grab the money, these situation is very awful to tackle, some time work get hampered and loose its spirit.
It was observed that to show the community participation project officials make the adjustment in the budget, they increase the cost of labour and material and whatever surplus money came up they show it as a cost of community contribution. The community participation is remaining as a good notion to speak or to shout only but no one project implementer or organization want to put it into practice because they don’t want to loose their lion share (big lump of money). Funding agencies should have to make a clear agenda that what type and up to what level participation they are expecting from community. For example if there is construction of community hall what community have to participate in the construction, local material such as sand, stone, wood or in form of labour, if that is the case then these cost should be deduce from contract and appropriate contract can be awarded to contractor, otherwise contractor will claim the money for the same for which community already given their participation. Generally it happens, in this business the project official and contractor grabbed good amount money, and they enjoy win-win situation.
Community Participation
To ensure the trust and to get fair participation from community, in the initial stage it should be clearly shared with community that what participation is expected from them, how they will benefit. May be the participation of community should be clearly highlight on sign board or project should have to award one small certificate of participation to Village Development Committee or to Village Authority as a proof of their participation. To monitor the participation of community the joint committee of project officials and villagers may record the participation on daily basis and evaluate in terms of money.
uring the fishermen livelihood survey, I visited almost all villages situated on the bank of river Mattru Jong. It came in Bonthe district the Southern part of Sierra Leone, West Africa. The river Jong meet with the Atlantic Ocean because of back water of sea the Jong river water is some places turned in brackish water and that created good ecology for the development of Mangrove forest. Near this bank the small- small hamlet is developed, mostly fishing and farming communities are habituating in villages moreover these hamlet constituted with 15 to 50 families or houses. I visited nearly 12 fishing cum farming hamlet of Nongo Babulon & Bendu Cha chiefdoms like Momaya, Molbat, Mania, Bendu Cha, Mosele, Tisana, Modevis, Bunpetoke, Taigbe, Garinga and Yealewa. I observed that in what condition these people are living, the life totally depend on mercy of God. No primary health and sanitation facilities, no education and no appropriate reliable means of transportation. For transportation they are using dug-out canoes Keno (The small boat carved in one big trunk of wood). Because of insufficient income from fishing they are engage in other business such as wood cutting, farming etc.
Sharad Pant - The True Voice 