Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online)2225-0484 (Online) Vol.6, No.12, 2016 8 Do Actors Interest Count in Planning Community Based Projects? Evidence from Community Based Water Projects in Central Tanzania Victor George Department of Development Studies, University of Dodoma, School of Social Sciences, P.O. Box 395, Dodoma - Tanzania Abstract Community based projects are necessary tools of channeling development to communities. The aim of using community development projects as a development vehicle rests in the assumption of brining power back to the community and enhancing sustainability. In designing, planning and implementing projects, various actors are involved. Presumably different actors have varied interests in projects. Nevertheless, empirical evidence of actors’ interests in planning and managing community based projects is missing. This study uses cases of water projects to expound actors’ interests in community based water projects. The study was conducted in Central Tanzania singling out two regions namely Dodoma and Singida. A cross sectional design was adopted for the study purposes. A total of 30 Community based water projects were surveyed and 390 water users were randomly sampled for household survey. Multiple methods of data collection were used ranging from household survey, Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews. The study found that three categories of actors exists in the study area, these actors do participate in projects cycle with varied interests. Evidence suggests interest the influence of interest in project sustainability. The study recommends a holistic approach of planning incorporating actors’ interest at different stages of project life cycle. Keywords: Actors, community based water projects, interests and planning, project cycle INTRODUCTION Community based projects 1 are becoming necessary tools of development policy implementations. These projects are now adopting the bottom-up approach in its design and implementation. The aim of using community development projects as a development vehicle rests in the assumption of brining power back to the community and enhancing sustainability. Other approaches that were used earlier in implementing development projects seem to prove failure. The most dominant of these approaches were the top down approach. In this case governments assumed the position of identifying problems, finding solutions and implementing the interventions. Literature suggests unsatisfactory results or performances of such projects. The community based projects seemed as a panacea to projects failures. However, that has not been the case. To date the question of project failures still persist. Three schools of thought exist on the reasons for failure. One suggests projects failure as a result of poor planning (pre-project) while others suggest failure is a result of poor management (execution). On the other hand factors external to projects (environment) might also contribute to project failure. On the other-hand project failure has been highly linked w i t h non-participatory approaches u s e d i n planning and execution especially with development projects. At this end governments and development partners has opted for participatory planning and community based management approaches. Despite the new approaches in planning and management, yet the community based projects fail. This calls for alternative thinking on the planning and management approaches of the community based projects taking into consideration interests of actors. The interest has been singled out because when planning and managing project, actors have different interest that could influence positively or negatively the success of projects. It could be pointed out clearly that empirical evidence of actors interests in planning and managing community based projects are missing. This study is an attempt to analyse actors’ interest in planning and managing community based projects. In doing so the paper uses empirical evidence from 30 community based water projects in central Tanzania. Community based projects: Community based development projects are regarded as the rapid approach for channeling development assistance (Mansuri and Rao, 2004). The major reason for advocating community management is the acknowledgement that people, who are targeted by a project, s h o u l d h a v e a major stake during project implementation. Since they are the ones who potentially benefit from the project, they are also interested in maintaining these benefits for a long time. So in order to make community management successful, the community must not only participate at meetings but should also be involved in planning, decision-making processes and even contribute their money and/or labor (Doe and Khan, 2004; Buddeke, 2010). Apart from just contributions, the other advantages of community management include; increased ownership, familiarity with the system, decreased project costs etc.