Influence Of Community Participation On Sustainable Project Management. A Case Of Nakuru Town, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of community participation on sustainable management of projects in Nakuru town. Community participation has been regarded as the force in ensuring sustainable and positive development changes in our society. This study was based on 4 key objectives, i.e. to establish the influence of community participation on need identification and prioritization, to examine the extent to which the community participates in the planning stage of development projects, to assess the level of community participation in project implementation and to examine the influence of community participation in project monitoring and evaluation. The study’s main focus was Nakuru town in Nakuru County, being the fourth largest city in Kenya, after Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, with 307,990 inhabitants, according to the 2009 census report, as compared to Eldoret’s 289,380, Kericho’s 150,000 and Naivasha’s 181,966. Geographically, Nakuru is centrally placed, making it one of the most accessible towns in Kenya. It is also a tourism town, due to its vicinity to three lakes and Lake Nakuru National Reserve. Nakuru is a major source of raw materials with its agricultural highland hinterlands, and mineral reserves in Gilgil and Kariandusi. As a result, it has attracted many development initiatives that has led to the growth and urbanization of the town. This study hoped to reveal how community participation has contributed to sustainable urban development within the town, and the extent to which its residents have contributed in idea conceptualization, prioritization, construction, operation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects. The study was based on Freire’s theory of dialogical action, who believed that communication has a key role in human co-existence with each other, and that it is human nature to be dialogic. He insisted that it was the role of educators to provide a favorable conditions for dialogue so that learners can share knowledge, facilitate culture creation, liberation, while promoting understanding among people. Freire (1970), challenged the then existing conceptions of development especially in education, as he argued that development programs approach in educating farmers had failed, as they were keen to have farmers adopt new and foreign innovations as practiced by the Western world without considerations on how these concepts related with the existing practices. He argued that knowledge creation was a creative discovery of the universe, and not transfer of information from those “who have it” to the ones “who lack it”. The development programs adopted an authoritarian approach that was against community interaction and knowledge sharing. In place of that, he came up with a liberating form of education where communication was conceived as dialogue and participation, which prioritized commitment, trust and cultural identity and that cultivated a sense of ownership through sharing and reconstruction of knowledge and experiences. This approach defined active community participation and equity. The findings of this study are important and could be useful in many ways, i.e. Project donors, developers and managers will be informed on the importance of involving the community in all stages of project development. This information may also be used by policy makers to emphasize on the importance of project monitoring and evaluation in the sustainability of projects. The study targeted a population of 1011 individuals, and a sample size of 278 respondents, based on Krejcie and Morgan table (1970). Purposive sampling was adopted in determining the respondents. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected using interviews and questionnaires, and analyzed by the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), and presented using tables. The study revealed that 69.5% of the respondents participated in need identification and prioritization, 60.1% in planning of development projects, 76.5% in project implementation and 53.9% were involved in project monitoring and implementation. The researcher found that there was need to increase the participation of the community in need identification and prioritization, as failure of this involvement has led to implementation of projects that do not address the needs of the community. There is need for more emphasis by the development stakeholders, especially the government and funding agencies, on more involvement of the community to assist in community empowerment and promote project sustainability. This will ensure that the community members are well conversant with the projects around them, to enable them properly run them after financial and managerial aid has been withdrawn. It was also founded that there was need to strengthen monitoring and evaluation initiatives and system, through provision of trainings and allocation of a budget to assist in monitoring and evaluation at the community level