Beneficiaries are actors too.pdf - Southern Institute of Peace ...

of ukulagisa became a thorny issue as it was a perennial source of
conflict between surrounding livestock owners and the local
authority.
It is therefore instructive for project designers to thoroughly
analyse the project cycle for sources of possible negative impact to
both the project and the beneficiaries. Also communities need to
be thoroughly prepared to embrace changes that are going to
occur in their lifestyles as a result of the project. This should not
only involve taking host communities through a change
management training exercise but also a full disclosure of the
potential positives and negatives of the project to their lives so
that informed consent for the project is obtained.
Community compliance or community participation?
The cornerstone of community-based development initiatives is
the active involvement of members of a defined community in at
least some aspects of project design and implementation
(Mansuri and Rao, 2004). CBRNM projects are usually conceived
outside host communities and sold to these communities through
ill prepared and ill administered participatory techniques. This is
why these projects have high sounding acronyms such as
WINDFALL, CAMPFIRE and LIFE (Living in a finite environment),
clear products of academic minds outside host communities.
Communities are only brought in to legitimize an already
conceived and funded project with project facilitators shaping
and directing participatory exercises and community “needs” are
often shaped by perceptions of what the project can deliver and
thus outside agendas get expressed as local knowledge (Mansuri
and Rao, 2004). Some ethnic groups such as the Tonga have
been sidelined in much of the decision-making processes of
CBRNM projects, even though they are often the original
inhabitants of these remote areas (Frost and Bond, 2007). Host
communities need to be afforded a chance for real participation
where they are fully informed of the objectives of the project and
they make inputs into the formulation and conceptualization of
the project not just pseudo participation designed to fulfil donor
requirements and a way of leading communities into a finished
product. Giving host communities a voice during project
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