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When Empowerment Disempowers: A case study of Ghana’s Community- Based Rural Development Projects

Ghana Journal of Development Studies

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Field Value
 
Title When Empowerment Disempowers: A case study of Ghana’s Community- Based Rural Development Projects
 
Creator Adusei-Asante, K
Hancock, P
 
Subject —
 
Description This paper argues that the term ‘empowerment’ is too complex a concept to be simply ‘inserted’ into development project designs without prior and precise conceptualization. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in 2010/2011 and using Ghana’s Community-Based Rural Development Projects (CBRDP) as a case study, the paper outlines power struggles that occurred between Traditional Chiefs and Local Government Officials over the right to manage the projects. The analysis shows that the  mal-application of ‘empowerment’ in the CBRDP’s design impacted negatively on the projects. As the project’s officials did not envisage the feuds there was no strategy in place to monitor and manage unintended outcomes. The paper provides a theoretical and empirical basis for policy-makers and program officials to consider more carefully the politico-cultural contexts of ‘development’ beneficiaries rather than focusing on positivistic and normative terms, such as empowerment, which seems to characterize many development projects at the global level.KEYWORDS: Empowerment, Local Government, Chieftaincy, Development policy, Community-Driven Development.
 
Publisher Faculty of Integrated Development Studies, University for Development Studies
 
Contributor —
 
Date 2014-01-21
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjds/article/view/99935
10.4314/gjds.v9i2.3
 
Source Ghana Journal of Development Studies; Vol 9, No 2 (2012); 43-62
0855-6768
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjds/article/view/99935/89196
 
Rights Faculty of Integrated Development Studies, University for Development Studies, Ghana