Community participation and its relationship to Community Development

The objective of this paper is to define the relationship between community participation and community development. The paper illustrates the weakness of existing interpretations, arguing that they are flawed because they concentrate on the failings of community development without analysing why successful community development succeeds. The paper concludes that community development is actually a specific form of community participation, the success of which is determined by two key factors: firstly, the role of the state; and secondly, the complexity of the decision-making taking place at the core of the community participation process.