Challenges Encountered in Community Development in Urban Slums: A Study of Ashaiman, Ghana
Keywords:
Community Development, Community Participation, Ethnic Diversity, Insecure Land Tenure, Project’s Sustainability, Resource Constraint, Slums.Abstract
Considering the success achieved in community development efforts undertaken in rural Ghana, the practice has been adopted to engender economic and social development in urban Ghana. Over time, informal settlements known as slums have emerged in and around the urban communities in Ghana, where the slum dwellers face many challenges such as poverty and poor housing. Although some community development efforts have been undertaken in these slums, the slum dwellers continue to live in impoverished conditions, due to unsuccessful and unsustainable community development efforts. This study was therefore adopted with the qualitative research design to find out the challenges that are encountered in community development efforts in Ashaiman slums. Thirty participants consisting of chiefs, assemblymen, community inhabitants and community developers were interviewed. The study found that community development in Ashaiman slums faced challenges such as lack of funds, ethnic and tribal differences, negative attitude of the inhabitants towards projects, lack of land ownership by inhabitants and poor monitoring and supervision of projects. It is therefore recommended that slum dwellers in urban Ghana are granted access to land so that they will be motivated to develop them as their own properties, and also be supportive of community development efforts.
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