2.1.3 Barriers to Effective Youth Participation A host of factors have been identified as obstacles to effective youth participation in development programs and projects. Oakley (1991) discusses three major obstacles to people’s and youths’ participation which are structural, administrative and social barriers. Structural obstacles form part of the complex and centralized organizational systems that control decision making, resource allocation and information, and are not oriented towards people’s participation. This situation is usually typified by a ‘top-down’ development approach. Administrative obstacles relate to bureaucratic procedures, operated by a set of guidelines and adopt a blue print approach, providing little space for people to make their own decisions or control their development process. The social impediments include mentality of dependence, culture of silence, domination of the local elite, gender inequality, and low levels of education and of exposure to non-local information (JOE, 2007). Furthermore, another obstacle is “standardization of approaches” (Guijt and Shah, 1998) which contradicts the original aims of participation to move away from the limitations of blue print planning and implementation towards more flexible and context-specific methodologies. This approach practically faced resistance from both the urban and rural elites. Consequently, by the late 1970s emphasis was imparted to ‘people’s participation’ in planning and administration. The prime objective was to involve people in decision making process (Finn, 2001). During the same period the idea of ‘decentralization’ also attracted wide attention of the developmentalists as a strategy for ensuring people’s participation in devolvement activities. Since 1970s scholars, development practitioners, donors as well as governments particularly
4.5. Youth Participation in Project Implementation (n=72) The study wanted to know whether youths participate in project implementation, in order to get this information the respondents were given the room to provide their views as shown in the Figure 4.6; Figure 4.6 Youth Participation in Project Implenation Source: Fild Data (2015) Accordig to the figure above shows that majority 56% of youth in Mkinga do not participate in Project implementation while the remaing 44% of youth who respondend to this study said that they are participation in implemtantion projects. These youth indentified the area in which they participante during implemanteion which icludes: unskiled labor, project monitoring, Community mobilization and skilled labor. This is another important area of which youth needs toparticipate because the projects in the area are for all community members including youth, thir participation will also help the in many ways. 4.5.1 What do they Benefit from their Participation (n=72) The researcher wanted to know what youth benefits from participating in project implementation. The figure below show thair view about benefits. Figure 4.7 What youth benefits from participation in implementaion Source: Filed Data (2015)
Environmental Psychology 22:171–89. Tonucci, F. and Rissotto, A. (2001). Why do we need children’s participation? The importance of children’s participation in changing the city. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 11:407–19. Udensi, L. and Sira, A. (2013).Youth Participation in Community Development (CD) Programmes: Cross river state, Nigeria. UN, (2010). 'World Youth Report - Youth and Climate Change'; New York, UN United Nations Economic and Social Council, (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, (2015). Youth Engagement in the Transition from MDGs to SDGs Waterman, A, S. (1997). An overview of service-learning and the role of research and evaluation in service-learning programs. In Service learning: Applications from the research, edited by Alan S. Waterman, 1–12. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. . Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Method: Applied Social Research Methods, Vol.5: Sage Publications Ltd. APPENDICES Appendix : Questionnaires Dear respondent, below is a set of questionnaires seeking your answers. The questions are for academic purpose only. Thus, your knowledge and experience are