Community Participation

Historically many of the World Bank's projects have failed because they are "top down" rather than "bottom up" projects. They have been known to fail to act inclusively with stakeholders at certain stage of development and therefore fail to utilize local knowledge, expertise, community understanding, and assertain their wants and needs and thus the very sustainability of the project. As a result they end up providing assistance that is neither wanted, needed nor long term unsustainable.

Community Participation Planning is an approach to development that gives villagers the freedom to identify their problems and opportunities and to decide on what to do themselves. Getting the whole community involved in identifying wants and needs, assisting in the planning, execution, monitoring of the project is vital for sustainable success and poverty alleviation. Participation relies on strengthening relationships between all stakeholders; fostering a collaborative inclusive culture, thus preventing marginalization and alienation of sub-groups; and on continuous and open dialogue where stakeholders can openly and freely exchange ideas, concerns and knowledge of best practice. It is important to manage the expectations of the stakeholders. Changes do not happen over night and require a lot of hard work and are subject to external factors.

Active community participation in decision-making regarding resources utilization required collaboration and transparent development planning using the capability of the people at the local level.

Development also needs to be understood. Improving farmer's output so that they can sell their surplus is all well and good, but if they cannot get the produce to market because the roads are so poor then the benefits are lost. Providing free primary school education is fine but if the work that the children were doing at home is not addressed, then they may not be economically able to go to school. Provide a meal at school and provide a source of water that is closer to the community and the balance starts to change. Ensuring there are enough toilets to keep the boys and girls separate will keep girls at school during menstruation.

Sometimes the solutions to development are simple and straight forward, while others are more complicated. But it is vital at each stage that the local community are involved in the process. That way a developer can provide what the community need and not what developers think they need. Local knowledge is vital to ensure projects succeed; school and hospitals not build on a riverbed that only flood every 7 years. These things happen when communities are ignored.

LTT operates through the community, in partnership with the community and only provides assistance when the community are unable to progress on their own, be it lack of suitable skills or resources.

Currently LTT operates in the education field, but as the Trust develops, it will seek to expand into other areas