| dc.description.abstract | NGO funded community projects have been facing serious sustainability issues resulting to little
impact after decades of implementation. Action Aid has been implementing a five years project
called Strengthening Community Livelihoods since 2011 under Local Right Programme. The
SCL project, funded by
Action Aid-
Australia at an estimated cost of Australian dollars 2.5
million ( Kenya Shillings 195 million), aims at improving accessibility to food through
promotion of sustainable livelihoods, agricultural production interventions, strengthening farmer
institutions’ capacity, support and advocate increased resources allocation as well as promote
shared learning on climate change. This study
covered
the semi arid Makima location, Embu
County where Action Aid
worked
directly with 32 FFS each with an average
of 25 members.
The main purpose of this study
was to
study factors influencing
sustainability
of
NGO funded
community projects. The objectives
were
to determine the
influence involving
benefiting
communities in the different phases of the project cycle
has to project sustainability, to
determine
the influence
capacity building
has to project sustainability,
to
establish the
influence utilization
of
locally available resources
has on project sustainability
as well as
determine the influence
practice of monitoring and evaluation
has on project sustainability. This study
adopted
descriptive survey design. Data collection tools whose validity and reliability
had
been verified
were used
to collect data from both implementing officers and project beneficiaries.
Stratified
random sampling
was
used to pick
75 project beneficiaries while 3 implementing officers were
interviewed.
Collected data
was
analyzed by use of both qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Statistical Packages for Social Scientists
version 20
was
used and
responses were
presented in
terms of percentages and frequencies. This was then
presented in table format.
The
findings of
the study revealed that majority of the stakeholders were
involved in project identification,
planning, implementation and
project monitoring and evaluation. There was also a good attempt
to build the capacity of the benefiting community with trainings targeting various topics being
held and all the respondents noted that they had attended such trainings. The project relied
on
both locally available resources and also resources that had
to be acquired commercially. The
project was monitored on monthly basis and progress reports done. Majority of the beneficiaries
were consulted to ensure that the project remained relevant to
their needs.
Spearman Correlation
was used to measure the strength of influence of the independent variables on Project
sustainability. Use of locally available resources showed the strongest influence on project
sustainability with a coefficient of 0.777
. Community participation had a coefficient of 0.578
while capacity building and monitoring and evaluation recorded a coefficient of 0.577 and 0.378
respectively. Regression model was used to determine the relationship between sustainability
and the independent variables. Regression model gave a constant of 3.657 with community
participation capacity building, local resources and practice of monitoring and evaluation having
1.654, 0.988, .0568 and 0.444 coefficients respectively. From the study, it was concluded that
community participation, capacity building, use of locally available resources and practice of
monitoring and evaluation all have positive influence on project sustainability.
The study
recommended that the project document should have a checklist to ensure beneficiaries are
adequately involved at all stages of project lifecycle and adequate trainings and support to be
done on value addition of farm and other products. The study also recommends that community
based monitoring and evaluation should be adopted to ensure that communities track and guide
their own development | en_US |
