Factors influencing sustainability of community based projects: the case of Arid Lands Resource Management Project II in Ganze constituency, Kilifi County, Kenya
Abstract
This research study investigated factors influencing sustainability of community based projects funded by Arid Lands Resource Management Project phase two in Ganze constituency, Kilifi County, Kenya. The researcher particularly sought to examine why in spite of the concerted efforts by developers, sustainability remains a challenge. The study was conceived after the researcher conducted monitoring and evaluation on the micro projects and found out that sustainability of the projects was questionable since most of the groups had disintegrated and some projects were un-attended to.
The study was conducted through descriptive research survey, data collected from 11 th June to 23rd June 2012 using questionnaires from the sample size of 102 respondents out of a total population of 2,520 beneficiaries. Similarly, two staff members of ALRMP II were interviewed and community leaders such as women groups, youth groups and administrative leaders in the selected locations were involved into a focused group discussion. Data processing was done using the statistical package for social science (SPSS).
The obtained data was analyzed by frequency tallies, percentages, cross tabulation and Chi square test of hypothesis. The research findings established that economic factors such as presence of income generating activities and over reliance on donor funding have major effect on sustainability of community projects. On the other hand household income level had no significant effect on involvement in planning of community projects. Land ownership is greatly affected by lack of title deeds which may have an effect on developmental activities in the area.
Technology has an impact in ensuring the sustainability of community projects in this area, use of extension services (few) and unavailability of spares and inputs in the local market were major technological indicators that affected community development projects. Cultural factors such as religion had no major impact on community involvement in development projects. Women were more involved in community activities. Cultural heritage was well preserved by the development projects and this can be associated with high levels of acceptance of community projects in the area.
Community participation especially the role played by the community in the project selection was found to be having a major impact on long term maintenance of the community projects. And the study recommends that the community need to understand the need to engage in income generating activities so as to boost their earnings.
There is a need for the local developmental organizations to promote community awareness on the viable income generating projects such as bee keeping (dry land farming) that can be initiated in the area, need to ensure availability of spare parts and inputs that are necessary in day to day operations of development projects in the area, government to improve road network in the area so that these supplies can reach the local markets for easy access locally and a need for the development agencies to scale up extension services as this will promote uptake of new farming practices that will improve agricultural productivity in the area.
The researcher suggests that it is necessary to conduct further studies to identify the effects of level of education on community development; deeply evaluate the implication of unsuccessful community projects on sustainability of community development and look at the effects of rainfall failure on community development projects so as to develop suitable means of addressing this problem.
Publisher
University of Nairobi, Kenya
Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [5964]