Community participation in urban road infrastructure development: experience from jimma town, oromia national regional state

Abstract

The objective of this research is assessing community participation in urban road infrastructure development projects in Jimma town Oromia regional national state. It was based on cross section data collected from 360 randomly selected residents from 4 kebeles in the town that were selected using multistage cluster sampling. To this end, the study employed mixed approach i.e. Qualitative and quantitative, key informant interview schedules were used to collect data concerning the community participation and road infrastructure development in the City with purposively selected informants, Primary data’s collected through using systematically prepared questions, and secondary data source was collected through review of relevant literature from different sources and formats, including books, articles and other related research documents. Findings reveal that the presence of poor urban road infrastructure both in quality and access, the road sector was found external resource dependent, deficient in resource mobilization and Topography of the town by itself also escalate the problem. The town has limited standard of asphalt and cobble stone and still there is high coverage of road that need maintenance due to long service and poor quality, There is the demands of additional roads specially intercity roads in which none of cobblestone or asphalt and still remain as paved soil. Community participation is not well institutionalized in Jimma town and it is the current issue for the municipality, community participation facilitated by local influential elders and community influential leaders to solve their local road problem by using local resource temporarily, and implemented in the town to fill the financial gaps of projects. The community is not participating in the entire project cycle; in planning, implementation, maintenance, operation and evaluation are not satisfactory; and thus obstacle for substantive community participation. The study also found that there is poor communication and relationships among the municipality, kebele leaders that manage the project and the community. This problem has affected the possibility for fostering institutionalized community participation in the City and hampered the synergy of the growing trend of participation in the road infrastructure development of the City. To conclude the problem of road infrastructure of the Jimma town is emanated from both manmade and natural phenomena. The study recommends that all concerned bodies which are the local communities, the municipality and other stake holders like ERASWR, NGOs, and business men’s should take their responsibility to solve this critical problem