3.3. Community participation
The importance of community participation to the success of a community-based project has been pointed out by Townsend.
The author has argued that long-term success depends on the level of community participation, as well as on the ownership of the system.
This view is also supported by [37 who notes that “without this (community) participation the project would have failed or been rejected by the community itself”.
Community participation is also thought to increase the sense of belonging.