Factors influencing effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation of constituency development funded projects; the case of Kuresoi Constituency, Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

In a contemporary shift towards result-based management across governments and a deliberate focus on customer service in both development initiatives and business environments, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) has become increasingly important to assure an evidencebased decision making. The call for wider participation of the local groups in Kenya and beyond has seen a corresponding and steady increase in the amount of resources decentralisation. These funds include the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Women Enterprise Fund, and Youth Enterprise Fund among others.

The outcomes from implementation however, sharply contrast across many constituencies and regions. Conversely not much effort has been taken to assess the capacity of the local groups to effectively manage and track the fund utilisation. M&E is management tool that enables project implementers to gather data and utilise the same in taking corrective actions during implementation as well being accountable to the project sponsors and the beneficiaries.

This study therefore, sought to investigate some of the factors that may affect M&E effectiveness at the grass root level. The research subsequently selected the CDF program with Kuresoi Constituency as the case. Of particular concern to the study was to assess the Project Managers Committees' (PMC) educational and technical skills vis-it-vis the conduct and outcome of M&E exercise. Further the study embarked on establishing how the PMCs develop or formulate their project performance indicators in terms of utilising these indicators to measure performance. Also critical was to determine the influence of stakeholder involvement in M&E with keen focus on participatory M&E. An in-depth examination into the existing body of knowledge was done to establish linkages between the study problem and the available secondary data.

The research adopted a descriptive research design. The study therefore sampled 120 PMCs from a target population of 172 drawn from the projects in 2009/2010 financial year. Questionnaires were then circulated to these committees through the research assistants and a response rate of 79.l7% was obtained. The findings from the survey revealed that PMCs educational qualification are quite low considering that cumulative 41.1 % had not gone past secondary school level. Only 26.6% had benefited from at least one training in project management. Further it was found out that as part of PMCs indicator on performance they have developed M&E Schedules/timetables for the guiding their field operations. However, the utilisation of the same was found to be weak.

The findings also revealed that there was observable involvement of the stakeholders in M&E activities indicated by the high number of meetings between the PMCs and primary stakeholders with 41.5% of the PMCs having held 3 meetings. There was however little or no defmition of the stakeholders' role. To some extent the PMCs alluded that they include the inputs of the beneficiary in their decision making. The study recommended that the nomination of PMCs should set requirement for minimum basic qualification.

Further there is need to decrease the number of projects per financial year by the CDF management to reduce the burden of trainings needed for untrained PMCs. In addition there is need to make conscious and deliberate steps to develop sound monitoring indicators that are jointly formulated before M&E activities takes place. Finally study recommended the need to have a stakeholder analysis that shall spell out the role and aspirations of each stakeholder.