Abstract
The global goal of achieving gender equality and sustainable development cannot be fully achieved without paying great attention to the extent of women’s involvement in development projects. This is essentially because women are a corporate part of our communities, many times even outnumbering men. This study explored the participation levels of women in community development projects in rural communities of Ghana. Using the quantitative research approach, 300 randomly selected resident women from the ages of 18 to 60 within six communities in the Central Region were used for the study. The study revealed that the women generally participated poorly in community development projects. They were specifically found to be relegated to the background as spectators in decision making, sympathetic in planning, monitoring and evaluation. However, their highest level of participation was at the project implementation stage, where they mostly served as labourers. The study further discovered that women’s participation levels in community projects is directly linked to the relevance of the projects to them. It is therefore recommended that thorough exposition on the relevance of community projects through awareness raising is required to increase the participation levels of women, to enable them contribute their quota to the management of community development projects.
Key words: gender, inclusivity, participation, community development projects