Local Government Administration and Community Participation in Cameroon: A Case Study of Buea Municipality
Abstract
This study seeks to address three-fold issues, which are: To evaluate how community participation in local government administration encourages local democracy; To investigate how community participation in local government administration yields strong mechanisms of accountability and To examine the challenges faced by community participation in local government administration in Buea Municipality. This study has made a positive contribution to knowledge by combining the local government administration and community participation in Buea Municipality. The research made used of the Democratic-Participatory Theory and brought out the relevance of the theory to this study. Through the various instruments used, such as: closed-ended and open-ended questions, interview and observations, it has been identified that Community Participation in local government administration do encourage local government, local accountability and do face enormous challenges. This was achieved with the aid of 82 respondents who answered the questionnaires from the Buea Community. Results from the field work were analysed quantitatively. Quantitatively, the researcher employed the chi-square method to test the three hypotheses of the study. With a general agreement rate of 68% and calculated X2 (112.1), greater than the table value (22.13) at 0.05, the first research alternate hypothesis (H1) has been accepted which stipulates that community participation in local government administration do encourage local democracy in Buea Municipality. Moreover, with the general disagreement rate of 76% and calculated X2 (27.48), greater than the table value (16.57) at 0.05, the second research alternate hypothesis (H2) has been accepted which means that community participation in local government administration yields strong mechanisms of accountability in Buea Municipality. Finally, with the general agreement rate of 72.4% and with calculated X2 (38.72), greater than the table value ( 18.15) at 0.05 level of significance, the third research alternate hypothesis (H3) has been accepted which stipulates that there are challenges faced by community participation in local government administration in Buea Municipality. The researcher rounded up the study with the following recommendations. Organisation of sensitization campaigns, creation of structure for Community Participation, enforcement of the laws and the practice of transparency in local government administration.
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