Abstract:

Background: A community based organization (CBO) is a group of people who come together for service delivery in their community to improve their social and economic well-being. In 2013, Kadoma City replaced permanent employees with CBOs to improve community ownership in service delivery and reduce costs. Since 2013, no evaluation had been done to assess benefits and residents were complaining about inconsistencies in service delivery by CBOs. An evaluation was done to assess the benefit of engaging CBOs compared to city council employees.

Methods: A comparative cost analysis and a descriptive cross sectional study was conducted. Interviewer administered questionnaires, financial records and CBO contracts were used for data collection. Epi Info 7 was used to calculate means and frequencies.  Microsoft-Excel 2013 was used to consolidate and analyze financial reports.

Results: Eighty-one residents, 30CBO members, 15councillors, 10 managers, five workers representatives were recruited into the study. CBOs provided a wider variety of services compared to city council employees. After an initial increase, there was a decrease in the costs for service delivery from $849,000to $590,000 per year. The benefits of engaging CBOs included reduced cost of services, improved service delivery and poverty alleviation.

Conclusions: There was net benefit from the engagement of CBOs, improved service delivery for less expenditure. On our recommendation, CBO contracts were renewed and more CBOs were engaged to cover other areas.

Keywords: Community based organizations, Kadoma, Zimbabwe

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