Community participation is a vibrant constituent for successful disaster risk management recognized by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The African framework for ending drought emergencies emphasize the importance of local initiatives which are participatory, sensitive and gender focused in disaster risk management. Despite the deliberate efforts, the role of community participation in disaster risk management has remained glaringly unclear. This article focused on grassroots participation in resilience initiatives by examining practices in beneficiary identification, needs identification, information dissemination, ownership and control to describe their effects on the management of drought risk management. A descriptive study was conducted which noted weakness community participation role in design and implementation of resilience initiatives. The study established that the planning, design and implementation of drought risk management interventions was a preserve predetermined and dominated by experts. The study recommends integrated drought early warning for early, adequate and timely conveyance. Formation of community disaster management units would be implemented as a key pillar in productive community participation partnerships as community driver for drought risk planning and management. A break from the past was that men were a key segment of the community apparently left out in resilience building therefore there was need of developing attractive avenues for men participation. Technology transfer was identified as a key enabler of transformation which was very weak in the community. There was need to scale up extension services and civic education to promote uptake of new drought risk reduction technologies to elevate community livelihood productivity beyond subsistence