Abstract:
Community participation in development planning, monitoring and evaluation is
considered as of importance as the heart that pumps blood, and that for
community development to be attained it has to been given tremendous
consideration. Nevertheless, a little is known on participation of communities in
participatory planning in many projects taking place in Tanzania and in Dodoma
Municipality in particular. The study was conducted at Chang’ombe ward, in
Dodoma Municipality, in order to assess participation community participation in
development planning, monitoring and evaluation. Data were collected using
documentary review, questionnaires, key informants, interview and focus group
discussion. A total of 113 respondents were selected in this study. Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to analyze data collected
from field into descriptive statistics. The study revealed that awareness of
community members on municipal development planning, monitoring and
evaluation was low as 75% were not aware while for governmental and nongovernmental organizations’ staffs’ awareness was (67%). Results also indicated
that community members were involved mainly in implementation (65.9%),
compared to planning (20%), and in monitoring (8%) and evaluation (7%).
Community was involved in decision making to a certain extent through provision
of views and recommendation. Roles of development agencies were satisfactorily
known by the community members. It can be concluded that members of the
community have little awareness on community participation. It is therefore,
recommended that community should be given more knowledge as to why they are
involved in planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation processes as
others questioned why they were contributing and they paid so many taxes
