| dc.description.abstract | After several decades of emphasis on rapid economic growth, there has been increased
awareness that development is not just higher growth of national income, but a means
of achieving basic human needs and development particularly those related to
individual and collective wellbeing made possible through self-reliance and with the
use of the community or society‟s own resources. Growth in agriculture is recognized
as the most effective means to reduce poverty in developing countries. The millennium
development goals establish ambitious targets for promoting economic growth,
improving health and education, empowering women, creating sustainable development
and reducing poverty. Various development projects have been mounted by the
government and development partners in an effort to address agricultural productivity,
increased incomes, sustainable livelihoods and public investment in the agricultural
sector as pathways out of poverty among them the Kenya agricultural productivity
project modeled and implemented as a community driven development project. This
research study sought to generate a deeper understanding of the performance of Kenya
agricultural productivity community driven development projects in Meru County. The
objectives guiding this study were to investigate how community leadership influences
performance of Kenya agricultural productivity Community Driven Development
project, to establish how external facilitators influence performance, to examine how
community participation influence performance and to examine how community
empowerment influence performance of Kenya agricultural productivity community
driven development projects in Meru County. The study adopted a descriptive survey
design involving a sample size of 138 farmers drawn from the project areas in Meru
County. A random sample of the respondents was drawn from a list of all the farmers
(22,498) that implemented the Kenya agricultural productivity Community Driven
Development projects. Both questionnaires and interviews were used in the study and
data analysis was carried out by use of SPSS programme to obtain descriptive statistics.
The study found that all the factors (community leadership, external facilitators,
community participation and empowerment) had a positive influence on performance
of Kenya agricultural productivity projects in Meru county. This study therefore
recommends that initiatives be undertaken to create awareness and encourage the youth
and the educated to take part and own community projects to boost the ability of the
local community to plan, design, mobilize resources, make decision, participate and
implement their projects. | en_US |
