Factors Influencing Community Development Professionals Performance at Workplace in Northern Tanzania

This paper focuses on factors influencing CD professionals’ performance in Tanzania with reference to selected local government councils. The role of community development (CD) professionals is basically to assist and facilitate the formulation and implementation of strategic policy interventions by the government to address challenges of service and goods deli23very to communities. However, their roles are not well known among the authorities, which causes their work performance and the factors affecting them to not be clearly known. A sample of 80 respondents, which included community development officers (CDOs) and district community development officers (DCDOs), was used. A key informant interview was used to elicit information from government administrators. CDOs and DCDOs were drawn from seven (7) selected district councils, namely Meru, Arusha, Arusha City, Monduli, Hai, Moshi DC, and Moshi MC. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire and documentary review, then analyzed using a Likert scale, where statement(s) like most favorable, favorable, neutral, unfavorable, and most unfavorable were used to show the favoritism of the factor(s) influencing CD professionals work performance. With the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), descriptive statistics were produced and presented in tabular form. It was found that budget allocation, motivation package, leadership style, work climate, respect for professionalism, and experts positively or significantly influence CD professionals’ work performance. This paper recommends that improving factors such as budgetary allocation, favorable work climate, leadership style, motivation package, job autonomy, employee/employer relationships, strategic plans, and career development at work will enhance CD workers’ performance and hence improve community well-being.