THE LVEMP COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION STRATEGY

Abstract

Since its inception in 1997, the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP) has made several efforts to integrate community participation across all project components. Success in implementation of community participation has varied from one component to another depending on the nature of component activities being undertaken as well as general understanding of participatory approaches among implementers.In order to effectively internalize and strengthen community participation in LVEMP, development of a coherent strategy to guide and coordinate community activities was reckoned necessary. This document presents the community participation strategy for the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project. The strategy aims at building the capacity of local communities and their institutions to take over devolved responsibilities from the Central Government as per Local Government Reform initiative. Under LVEMP, this means empowering the communities to manage and utilize available natural resources for their livelihood, income generation and economic development.