This article discusses the issues of community participation with specialreference to the Rural Growth Centre (RGC) programme in Sarawak. The RGCis aimed at creating growth centres which are self-sufficient and equippedwith the infrastructure, economic, service centre and human capital components.The establishment of an RGC involves large financial obligation and localcommunity participation is essential in ensuring its success. Hence, this articleexamines the community perceptions regarding their participations in RGCdevelopment, specifically looking at RGC Gedong, one of the earliest RGCsestablished in Sarawak, as the case study area. The article also looks at theextent to which the community participates in the implementations of RGCGedong and its impacts in terms of improving the community’s quality of life. Inaddition, community participations are discussed using Pretty’s typology ofparticipation and Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation Model. It is found thatthe level of community participation in RGC Gedong is very low and it iscategorised as passive participation (Pretty’s Typology) and participation astherapy (Arnstein’s Model), despite the fact that it should have been classifiedas partnership participation. This discrepancy exists due to lack of transparencyin decision making, lack of information given to the community as well as thelack of control (or power) on the part of the community in the decision makingprocess. All these have resulted in the lack of active community participations,which actually hinder the development of RGC Gedong. It can be considered asa failed initiative as it did not achieve all its goals and one of the contributingfactors is the failure to involve the community in the development process.