Search Filter

Keywords:

 

Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development (AJAD) - Call for papers!

Effectiveness of the community development methods in the rectangular strategy of development of the Royal Government of Cambodia

(Cambodia), Doctor of Philosophy in Community Development (University of the Philippines Los Baños)

Dissertation Abstract:

The study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the community development (CD) methods, namely: participatory research, community organizing, community education, and community planning in the Rectangular Strategy (RS) of development of the Royal Government of Cambodia. Data were collected from 186 respondents using personal interviews. Key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and secondary data analysis were also used. Descriptive statistics, Spearman rank correlation, and Chi-square test were used in the data analysis.
 
The findings showed that more than half (56%) of the respondents were male and had a mean age of 41 years old. All of the respondents engaged in farming and nearly half of them had an annual income of USD 100–300. Most (78%) of the respondents were not affiliated with any organization. Despite this, the people in the community have positive perception of the government programs/projects. This highlights the important role of the Village Development Committee in the implementation of the RS components, namely: rice production, irrigation, micro-finance, and capacity building.
 
The CD methods across the four components of the RS were moderately effective. The test of correlation showed that individual and institutional factors have highly significant associations with the effectiveness of CD methods.
 
In general, the study showed that the respondents have a favorable perception of the implementation of the RS in terms of the four components. Institutional support from government and nongovernment organizations were still limited across the CD methods in the four components of the RS. This implies that people still need more support from these organizations. Perception of government program, organizational
membership, household income, and institutional support are considerably crucial variables in affecting the effectiveness of the CD methods.