Proposed Methodology for Community-Based Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

Community participation is considered as one of the key activities of local government development. The new role of communities in infrastructure projects is to act as a bridge between the governmental agencies and the individual households. Low-income groups are generally poor not only financially, but also weak in terms of their power to influence decisionmaking on matters relating to their livelihoods and development of services. They are often totally excluded from the government development processes of planning, budgeting and project implementation. There are many parties concerned with infrastructure development that should be involved in a systematic manner in the formation of public policies and local planning. This study proposes a methodology to deal with all involved parties in infrastructure projects and it is recommended that it be followed from the first phase of any project. The proposed methodology is based on the investigation of the best practices and lessons learned from projects implemented by different agencies in Palestine. It is recommended that municipalities should reshape the people's understanding of the role and capacity of municipalities and to develop new mechanisms to develop trust and transparent relations with communities.