Influence Of Socio-Economic Factors On Sustainability Of Rural Community Based Afforestration Projects, Nyatike Sub County, Migori County, Kenya
Abstract
Based on the fact that agriculture is a key driver of deforestation, there is need to examine
the ramifications of socio-economic factors on sustainability of rural Community Based
Afforestation (CBA) initiatives. The intent of this research is to determine the influence
of socio-economic aspects on sustainability of CBA projects in Nyatike sub county,
Migori County Kenya. It is projected that the conclusions of this inquiry will help
influence strengthening of policies, plans or programs for sustainable community-based
afforestation projects in Migori County towards attainment of 10% tree cover. The study
will be conducted under four broad themes that will seek to determine how income
sources, people‟s attitude, community capacity and networks and collaboration influence
the sustainability of rural CBA projects. The function of government guidelines and
processes will also be investigated. This inquiry will employ a mixed design to gather
data at community level both from community members at household level and members
from strategic organizations that support expertise to CBA projects. A representative
sample size of 396 households from the 7 wards was randomly picked from population
size of 40,257 in Nyatike Sub County for questionnaire response. 20 members of CBA
projects and 5 partner‟s/opinion leaders were engaged in qualitative data collection. The
conclusions of the regression analysis disclosed a statistically significant positive
relationship between income, network & collaborations, attitude, capacity and
sustainability of rural community-based afforestation projects. However, the research
indicated non-statistically significant relationship between government policies and
sustainability. The study also confirmed that the assumptions of the two anchoring
theories; the system theory and the sustainability theory hold. The study therefore
recommends that there should be an increased collaboration between the rural people and
external afforestation experts and government, this collaboration is likely to lead to
knowledge transfer and consequently increased community participation in afforestation
projects to enhance sustainability of the initiatives. The research also recommends that
there should be purposeful afforestation training and mentorship to enhance the capacity
of the community as well as increasing investments on afforestation related income
opportunity as this is key driver of sustainable community driven afforestation initiatives.
The study proposes that further research should be done to investigate the relationship
between the attitude of the local people and participation in the sustainability projects.
The study also proposes that further examination should be conducted to ascertain the
linkage between government policies and participation in sustainability initiatives.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [6020]
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