Information Asymmetry and Community Participation in Carbon Credit Initiatives: Evidence from Forest-Dependent Communities in Eastern Province, Zambia

Carbon credit initiatives have expanded rapidly across forest-dependent landscapes in Zambia, yet the extent to which host communities are meaningfully informed and involved in decision-making remains uncertain. This study examined the effect of information dissemination on community participation in decision-making in carbon credit projects in Sinda and Vubwi districts of Eastern Province, with information asymmetry and knowledge gaps treated as related conditions. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was adopted. The sample of ninety-one households was determined using Yamane's formula, and respondents were selected through a multistage procedure concluding with simple random sampling. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analysed in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 26 through descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. Most respondents were from Sinda (73.6 per cent) and the rest from Vubwi (26.4 per cent). Descriptive results revealed high perceived information asymmetry (mean 4.27 of five) and low information dissemination (mean 1.33 of four), and only about a quarter of respondents (25.3 per cent) reported involvement in decision-making. The regression model was significant and explained 30.5 per cent of the variance in community participation, with information dissemination the only significant predictor (standardised coefficient 0.726, p less than 0.001), while asymmetry and knowledge gaps were not significant. The findings indicate that the quality and frequency of deliberate information flows, rather than asymmetry alone, drive informed engagement. The study recommends transparent, locally appropriate communication, robust free, prior and informed consent and accountable benefit-sharing to deepen genuine participation in carbon credit governance.