ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURAL PROJECTS SUSTAINABILITY IN ESE-ODO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, ONDO STATE

Abstract

The study analysed community participation in public infrastructural projects’ sustainability in Ese-Odo Local Government Area Ondo State, Nigeria. The study examined the level of community participation; investigated the factors influencing community participation; and examined the effect of community participation on project sustainability. It adopted a quantitative research approach conducted in a cross-sectional design with the use of structured questionnaire to collect primary data from community chiefs, community development council members, youths and women leaders across selected communities in Ese-Odo Local Government Area, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select 400 community chiefs, community development council members, youths and women leaders from the selected communities in Ese- Odo Local Government Area, Ondo State, Nigeria. The study conducted both descriptive and inferential analysis using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 23. The descriptive analysis of the study revealed that there is a low level of community participation in all the project management phases which are initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling; and closing phase. The economic, political and social factors are the salient factors influencing community participation in Ese-Odo Local Government Area, Ondo state, Nigeria. In addition, the findings of the regression analysis revealed that community participation has a positive but an insignificant effect on the sustainability of public infrastructural projects. Therefore, the study concluded that there is a low level of community participation. Therefore the study recommends that community should be involved more in public development projects and programmes; and the political and economic factors should be tackled to create an enabling environment for community participatory activities.