Abstract:

The Sierra Leone local council is charged with the responsibilities to govern and look over the welfare of its citizens in its localities but has been faced with a lot of challenges ranging from limited finance, insufficient staff capacity, insufficient material resources, mobility, and little compliance from bigger MDAs in terms of control. Hence has raised effectiveness issues in council operations. With the implementation of participatory budgeting in Port, Loko District Council calls for a study with the objective to investigate the effectiveness and linearity of participatory budgeting in the achievement of community development goals in the Port Loko District Council. Purposive sampling was done and administered a survey questionnaire to 420 respondents in the Port Loko District. Simple linear regression and correlational tests were used to interpret and analyze the primary data using SPSS 16.0 software package. The data analyses found out that there was a mean agreement rate of 1.95, which indicated that the respondents agreed that participatory budgeting was effective. The hypothesis test, if the effectiveness of participatory budgeting in Port Loko District Council has an impact on the achievement of community development goals, the major finding in this research is that effectiveness of participatory budgeting significantly affects the achievement of community development goals in the council district and concludes that participatory budgeting implemented in the Port Loko District Council in relation to the achievement of community development goals is effective, has a positive relationship and a strong correlation between them.

References:

[1] ACT, L. G. (2004, 03 1). The Local Government Act, 2004. Retrieved 11 01, 2020, from The Local Government Act, 2004-Sierra Leone Web: http://www.sierra-leone.org/Laws/2004-1p.pdf.

[2] Eisenstein, L. (2016, 3 6). The Importance of Effective and Efficient Local Governments. Retrieved 06 23, 2021, from Diligent Insights: https://insights.diligent.com/workload-management/the-importance-of-effective-and-efficient-local-governments/.

[3] LGA. (2020). Participatory Budgeting. Retrieved 11 1, 2020, from Local Government Association: https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/devolution/engaging-citizens-devolution/approaches-civic-and-democratic-engagement-0.

[4] Campbell, M., Escobar, O., Fenton, C., & Craig, a. P. (2018, 7 3). The impact of participatory budgeting on health and wellbeing: a scoping review of evaluations. Retrieved 06 24, 2021, from BMC Public Health: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-5735-8.

[5] Sesay, J. B. (2018, 11 4). Local Councils, Service Delivery and their Welfare! Retrieved 11 09, 2020, from Sierra Express Media: https://sierraexpressmedia.com/?p=86005.

[6] Dauda, S. J. (2019). Personnel Management in Local Government Performance— A Case Study of Bo City Council, Sierra Leone. International Journal of Management and Fuzzy Systems, 1-6.

[7] Accounting Dictionary. (n.d.). What is Effectiveness? Retrieved 11 4, 2020, from My Accounting Course:https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting-dictionary/effectiveness.

[8] Kolmar, C. (2020, 11 16). Efficiency vs. Effectiveness: what’s the difference? (with examples). Retrieved 06 23, 2021, from ZIPPA: https://www.zippia.com/advice/efficiency-vs-effectiveness/.

[9] Principle of Management. (2016, 05 30). Principles of Management Efficiency and effectiveness. Retrieved 11 04, 2020, from Principles of Management: https://www.peoi.org/Courses/Coursesen/mgt/fram9.html#:~:text=Efficiency%20and%20effectiveness%20are%20often%20considered%20synonyms%2C%20but%20they%20mean,is%20doing%20the%20right%20things.&text=This%20includes%20management%20processes%20as%20well%20as%2.

[10] Brun-Martos, M. I., & Lapsley, a. I. (2016). Democracy, governmentality, and transparency: participatory budgeting in action. Public Management Review, 1006-1021.

[11] Schneider, S. H., & Busse, a. S. (2018). Participatory Budgeting in Germany – A Review of Empirical Findings. International Journal of Public Administration, 259-273.

[12] Harkins, C., & Egan, a. J. (2012, 03). The Role of Participatory Budgeting In Promoting Localism And Mobilising Community Assets. Retrieved 11 2, 2020, from Glasgow Centre for Population Health: https://www.gcph.co.uk/assets/0000/3145/GCPH_Participatory_Budgeting_FINAL.pdf.

[13] Piña, G., & Avellaneda, a. C. (2017, 02). Local Government Effectiveness:. Retrieved 06 24, 2021, from Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318348239_Local_Government_Effectiveness_Assessing_the_Role_of_Organizational_Capacity.

[14] Nelson, K. L., Gabaris, G. T., & Davis, a. T. (2011, 11 2). What Makes Municipal Councils Effective?: An Empirical Analysis of How Council Members Perceive Their Group Interactions and Processes. Retrieved 06 24, 2021, from SAGE Journals: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0160323X11424913?journalCode=slgb.

[15] Osman, M. M., Bachok, S., Bakri, N. I., & Harun, a. N. (2017, 1 4-5). Government Delivery System: Effectiveness of local authorities in Perak, Malaysia. Retrieved 06 24, 2021, from Science Direct: https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/277811/1-s2.0-S1877042814X00480/1-s2.0-S1877042814055219/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEDoaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQC4jw7lvp7wjCniSScskWcwt02f8urvh5AfDCnGnX81XgIhAL6yXN2a69c50B3irOfx1UXn9xHQfJrmBy2e8v6EHDx8.

[16] Straza, M. (2018, 12 17). Community Development: What It Is, Its Importance, and How to Contribute in Your City. Retrieved 11 1, 2020, from
Straza Consulting: https://www.consultstraza.com/community-development-what-it-is-its-importance-and-how-to-contribute-in-your-city/.

[17] OCHA Services. (2015, 12 29). Sierra Leone: Port Loko District Profile (29 December 2015). Retrieved 06 18, 2021, from reliefweb: https://reliefweb.int/report/sierra-leone/sierra-leone-port-loko-district-profile-29-december-2015.

[18] Kanu, K. (2017, 08 11). US$2,750,000 JSDF Grant to Sierra Leone to Strengthen Community Mobilization and Service Delivery. Retrieved 06 18, 2021, from Cocorioko: https://cocorioko.net/us2750000-jsdf-grant-to-sierra-leone-to-strengthen-community-mobilization-and-service-delivery/.

[19] Bevans, R. (2020, 02 19). An introduction to simple linear regression. Retrieved 06 08, 2021, from Scribbr: https://www.scribbr.com/statistics/simple-linear-regression/.

[20] Frost, J. (n.d.). Interpreting Correlation Coefficients. Retrieved 06 08, 2021, from Statistics By Jim: https://statisticsbyjim.com/basics/correlations/.