Beneficiaries’ Voices on Engagement in International Development Projects in Kenya: Relationships and Dialogue Matter

• In Event: EXTENDED SESSION PART 2: Global Communication and Social Change in African Contexts

Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been criticized for not engaging local knowledge, perspectives and action in project decision-making and implementation even though they claim to embrace a participatory approach. Utilizing in-depth interviews with 24 beneficiaries who live in an impoverished community in urban Kenya, this study examines beneficiaries’ perspectives on communication, participation and relationships with NGOS that work in their communities. The interviews yielded 5 themes that together describe beneficiaries’ perceptions about the ways NGOs work with them. According to the beneficiaries interviewed, many NGOs do very little listening, engage them in mostly superficial ways, and do not take the time, nor make the effort, to build relationships. The results are discussed within the framework of a relational model of participatory communication, which focuses on building mutually beneficial and mutually influential relationships that can reduce the social distance between donors and practitioners on the one hand and local stakeholders on the other.

Author

• Renee Botta, U of Denver