Influence Of Community Participation On The Performance Of Child Sponsorship Donor Funded Education Projects: A Case Of World Vision Area Program In West Pokot County, Kenya

Abstract

Community participation in many given projects that is being carried out has not been well structured and neither is it passed to the community or intended beneficiaries well. Moreover, structured project information is not properly passed to the community to fully capture the views of the project beneficiaries. It is against this backdrop that this study sought to investigate the influence of community participation on project performance of child sponsorship donor funded education projects, a case of World Vision Orwa Area Program in West Pokot County in Kenya. The study was be guided by the following objectives; to determine the extent to which community involvement in identifying projects influence the performance of child sponsorship World Vision education projects in West Pokot County, to establish how community involvement in project administration and finance influence the performance of child sponsorship World Vision education projects in West Pokot County, to determine the extent to which community participation in project communication influences the performance of child sponsorship World Vision education projects in West Pokot County and to establish how community participation in project monitoring and evaluation influences the performance of child sponsorship World Vision education projects in West Pokot County. This study engaged descriptive survey in the research study. The target population comprised of a total of 649 individuals. A sample size of 150 respondents was used in the study being drawn from 46 teachers, 4 World Vision West Pokot, 100 board members who were randomly selected from the 38 primary schools under the World Vision Orwa Area Program (AP). Structured questionnaires and interviews schedules were used to collect the data. The collected data was analyzed with the aid of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) where both descriptive statistic and inferential statistics were used. The results showed that community participation in project identification significantly contributed to project performance being as expected to its fruition. It also showed that community participation in project administration significantly contributed to project performance. The findings of this study revealed that community participation in project communication significantly contributed to project performance and more so, community participation in project monitoring and evaluation significantly contributed to project performance project performance. The study concluded that community’s participation in project communication does significantly contributed to project performance project performance same applied to community participation in project monitoring and evaluation. The study concludes that community’s participation in project identification and planning are vital in project performance project performance. Also, community’s participation in project administration and financing are critical too in project performance project performance. In addition, the community’s participation in project communication significantly contributed to project performance project performance and that community’s participation in monitoring and evaluation are important in project performance. This study recommends that project stakeholders or managers should inculcate the culture of community participation in; project identification and planning, project communication, project financing and administration and also in project monitoring and evaluation.