Effects Of Community Members’ Attitudes And Self-Efficacy On Participation In Donor-Funded Projects In Tanzania: A Case Of Gawaye Grape Irrigation Project In Dodoma

ABSTRACT

The study focused on the Effects of Community Members‟ Attitudes and Selfefficacy on Participation in Donor-funded Projects in Tanzania: A Case of Gawaye Grape Irrigation Project in Dodoma. The study used mixed method approach and a Convergent Parallel Design where as both qualitative and quantitative data were concurrently collected and analyzed. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data from Gawaye local farmers while interview was used for qualitative data from key informants. From the 120 questionnaires distributed in the village, a total of 106 were collected and used in the analysis. The study found that, the relationships between respondents‟ age, sex, education level, marital status and IGA with community members‟ participation in the project were statistically insignificant. Thus they were not the factors for community participation in the project. Besides, the study found that community members‟ attitudes and self-efficacy show direct relationship with participation in the donorfunded project. Cross-tabulation and chi-square tests showed that community members‟ positive attitude and higher self-efficacy influence participation in the donor-funded project. Thus, participation in the donor-funded project increases with the increase in community members‟ positive attitude and higher self-efficacy. However, majority of Respondents (76%) were of the opinions that the major factor for community participation in the donor-funded project was poverty. Conversely, interviewees clarified the opinions as perception of local farmers who were affected by their attitudes towards projects. The study concludes that in order to improve participation in donor funded projects, the projects‟ stake holders should invest in improving community members‟ attitudes and self-efficacy before injecting any fund.