Briefing Paper

Participatory Approaches to Local Government Planning in Tanzania: The Limits to Local Participation

“This brief is a summary of the tracer study published by REPOA as Special Paper 17: “When bottom-up meets top-down: The limits of local participation in local
government planning in Tanzania”. District planning combines district-based, participatory and national planning processes. This brief and accompanying report explore the views and experiences of local government staff of this ‘hybrid’ planning model. The brief also summarises the financial, administrative, and political constraints to participatory planning, and by implication the resulting constraints upon Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) as a means of ‘democratising’ the district planning process.”