Factors Affecting Citizen Participation in Local Development Planning in Murewa District, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Local governments are the bedrock for sound public administration because of their role in promoting bottom-up socio-economic development. Although Zimbabwe has made strides in ensuring citizens’ participation in local government processes, local authorities and other stakeholders still rely on the top-down approaches, marginalising the needs of the local citizens. The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors that affect the active participation of citizens in local governance in the Murewa District in Zimbabwe. Based on a multistage sampling approach, involving purposive sampling and stratified random sampling, interviews were conducted with 30 local government officials, while a questionnaire survey was administered to 396 citizens in four wards within the district. Complementary data were collected through focus group discussions and field observations. Thematic analysis was employed on data generated from interviews, focus group discussions and field observations, while the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Version 16) was used to analyse quantitative data from the questionnaire survey. The results show that more than 50% of the residents in the district felt that local government leadership side lined them in development planning. Some citizens reported that officials used development planning meetings to further their political agendas. The study recommends enhancement of citizen participation through citizen empowerment programmes such as educational and political leadership training programmes that transform the marginalised communities into autonomous communities that are capable of determining their own destiny.

Cultural and creative quarters: An analysis of their problems from a communication approach

“…Two of the problems reported are in clear consonance with findings from previous studies (Figure 11). Both gentrification and lack of actors’ participation have already been identified as problems in cultural and creative areas (Evans, 2005; O´Connor, 2015; Hwang, 2016; Zukin, 2016; Belloso et al, 2017; Zukin et al, 2017; Pastak et al, 2019; Meschede and Mainka, 2020; Nyama and Mukwada, 2022). Additionally, this research has shed light on new aspects regarding the last idea and fine-tuned some of its details.…”

“…Previous research coming from disciplines like architecture, urban renewal and sociology has identified gentrification (Hwang, 2016;Pastak et al, 2019;Zukin et al, 2017), lack of citizen participation (Meschede and Mainka, 2020;Nyama and Mukwada, 2022;Qinghao and Zhizhang, 2014;Serapioni and Matos, 2014) and globalization (Ahokpe and Sag, 2021;Eton et al, 2019) as the main issues for the development of cities or districts (Tallon, 2013: 275):…”

“…Previous research coming from disciplines like architecture, urban renewal and sociology has identified gentrification (Hwang, 2016; Pastak et al, 2019; Zukin et al, 2017), lack of citizen participation (Meschede and Mainka, 2020; Nyama and Mukwada, 2022; Qinghao and Zhizhang, 2014; Serapioni and Matos, 2014) and globalization (Ahokpe and Sag, 2021; Eton et al, 2019) as the main issues for the development of cities or districts (Tallon, 2013: 275):1. Gentrification, exclusion and privatization of the urban landscape: One of the most common criticisms that cultural quarters receive is their effect as an accelerator of gentrification in cities (Hall and Hubbard, 1996; Waterman, 1998).…”

Reengineering Imperatives for Revamping Public Trust in Zimbabwe’s Local Government

“…According to [23], stakeholder engagement has been reduced to merely formality and dummy done to mislead citizens. Consequently, [3] highlighted that 50% of the respondents felt side-lined in local government development planning. A survey by [23] showed that 60% of the respondents felt that local budgets were not as responsive to their needs as they expected.…”

“…The literature has shown that governance challenges and associated service delivery woes have left local governments with an indelible public trust dent [1]- [3]. Several surveys by Afrobarometer, a renowned research network in Africa, have shown low levels of public trust in Zimbabwe"s local governments over the past five years.…”