Community Participation in national development is yielding positive impact for boosting the confidence of neglected masses especially in rural areas for fight against the poverty and joblessness.
In an interview, Chaudhry Shabir Ahmad, Executive District Officer (Community Development) District Government Faisalabad disclosed that the registration of Citizen Community Boards (CCBs) reached a record number of 1160 up to July 31, 2005 and an amount of Rs 463.832 million has been allocated for CCB development projects.
This is almost a four-times increase over 700 new CCBs registered during the current year as compared with the same period of last year. Presently, he said that the procedures and resources in CCB Project Management to prevent implementation delays and district government is trying to yield fruitful results within shortest time.
He said that the community participation refers to the space constructed by citizens to work next to their authorities in the decision-making, policy formulation, and implementation process.
Faisalabad has been actively involved in advocating community participation for more equitable and sustainable social development especially meaningful Agri development.
District government is trying to make conscious efforts to involve communities in undertakings that are directly related to their welfare, such as in education, natural resource management, water and sanitation and advocacy. However, the complete impact of CCBs efforts, have still to show long-term results. Some of the more popular experiences of community participation have emerged as a component of the recent public-private partnership nexus, he added.
Citing an example, Chaudhry Shabir Ahmad said that the Rural Support Programme experience has been instrumental in forming village-based community organisations, where members collectively manage their own credit and savings activities and eventually, broader decisions regarding their village. By far the most well-known example of communities taking part in improving their standard of living, has been the 34 Pilot Projects in Faisalabad, where villagers of the area largest squatter settlement banded together to develop and maintain massive sanitation and irrigation water supply system for their community.
As a result, they have yet to make a major impact in terms of becoming a non-negotiable part of any and all development related work. This is especially so in the case of government initiatives. Therefore, the CCBs are a direct result of the government making a conscious effort to make sure that the ideology of community participation is realised practically.
Although there have been several success stories as illustrated above in industrial cum Agri city, he hoped that 1160 registered CCBs will be able to universalise the concept of sustainable and equitable community participation, rather than keeping them isolated to selected locations after local bodies election.
EDO (CD) said that the "Poverty and Inequality" are increasingly seen as problems to be tackled by creating alliances between government and civil society. Such partnerships are the key to sustainable development and good governance.
Community participation in local government, especially in development planning and implementation, brings numerous benefits in rural and urban areas; Planning is improved, because it is geared to local needs and based on local knowledge; Resources are used more effectively, since there is less waste and corruption; Communities often contribute labour, materials, etc, thereby also cutting costs; Because local people are involved in all stages, and often contribute funds, labour, etc, they have an interest in ensuring proper implementation. The end result is better accountability; Communities are more likely to use public services, and it is easier for them to give feedback about service delivery, he added.
Community participation is important need for bright future of Pakistan. But it is equally important that governments do not lose sight of their primary responsibility to provide public services. Community participation should not be used as an excuse by government to avoid its obligation to deliver core services.
Commenting over the "Mechanisms for Community Participation", Chaudhry Shabir said that there is no single recipe for promoting community participation in local governance.
Different areas of the country have taken different approaches.
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