Local governance and participatory development in Tanzania: the case study of Magu district.

The persistent need for establishing people-centered development in Tanzania entailed a transfer of administrative mandate from central to local government. The objective for this study was to explain people-centered development by exploring how local governance process constrains or supports participatory development in Magu. The study used a case study design guided by social constructionist theory and a qualitative research methodology. In this respect, the social demographic characteristics of informants from household, development actors, village and district government were sorted out to maintain subjectivity in data collection process. The findings revealed local governance to be both supporting and constraining participatory development. The strength of local governance is from defined local government structure and its governance organs. Constraints are from limitations of hierarchical institutional power boundaries, inter-committees communication and undefined development policies. Key lesson from this study highlighted that participatory development is a social phenomenon where development actors‟ participation and process ownership is basic. Therefore, people-centered development requires redistribution of power to promote inclusiveness in local decision-making machinery. With this understanding, a continuous local governments Acts revision to minimize gender inequality and overlapping instructions from governance machineries as well as introduction of governance organs at Kitongoji have been recommended for bridging up structural and institutional gaps in governance and participatory development of Magu.