Community participation in decisions that have to do with planning and the implementation of development projects in Sierra Leone has been neglected for far too long; and more studies have ascertained the veracity or fact regarding this. This study was undertaken to investigate and have a detail assessment of community participation in development planning and implementations in rural communities in Sierra Leone. The objectives of the study were the examining of the knowledge of the rural people about decentralization on the one hand, investigating their participation in decision process towards development. Data were collected from 400 respondents selected purposive and systematic random sampling techniques using a structured questionnaire to collect data from households and semi-structured questionnaire to collect data from key informants. Data was analysed using statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) and correlation using regression. (Carefully arrange these sentences) Result indicated that there was not much knowledge about decentralisation owing to the little or less participation of the people and their service providers in decision-making regarding development but also the non-engagement; and which has inevitably resulted in severe socio-economic deprival- particularly in the context of basic services in the rural communities.