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Rural development and community participation in Lesotho

Rural development efforts in Third World countries often fail to meet the needs of
the most disadvantaged members of society. The priviledged continue to get a
disproportionate share of the fruits of development. This is so in spite of the fact
that development thinking has changed from the days when the poor were
expected to benefit from development through the "trickle down" effect. It is now
widely recognised that development should be focused on people in their local
communities (human development) and not on the economy per se.
To achieve this type of development requires an appropriate strategy of
development, and people's/community participation is such a strategy. People's
participation in development takes place through community based organisations.
The organisations faciiitate the development of the human potential of members.
This study investigates the conditions under which rural community participation
takes place in lesotho. The Thabana-Morena Integrated Rural Development Project
is used as a case study.
The first objective is to determine the appropriateness of the organisations through
which community participation was promoted in the project.
The second objective is to isolate the political and administrative factors which
affected participation in the project.
Thirdly, the study tries to identify factors at the village level which influenced
participation in the project.
Fourthly, the study evaluates the effectiveness of the project in experimenting with
participatory approaches, given that development projects are basically
mechanisms for testing the appropriateness of national policies before applying
them on a wide scale.
Finally, a set of principles is developed on the basis of which participatory
development can be facilitated. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Administration)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/17496
Date11 1900
CreatorsMonaheng, Tsitso
ContributorsSwanepoel, Hennie
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format1 online resource (xiii, 344 leaves)

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