Factors influencing project planning in Kenya's rural health development projects; a case of turbo constituency, Uasin Gishu county.

Abstract

The study sought to examine the factors that influence project planning in Kenya's rural health development projects. It analyzed the effects of resources, leadership capabilities, political organization and societal culture influence on project planning. This study was based around open systems theory, resource based theory and strategic leadership theory. The study employed a descriptive research design. The population of the study was all heads of the rural health development projects, community leaders, trained health workers and the chairman of Turbo Constituency Development Fund (CDF). According to the CDF board of Turbo, there were approximately 28 rural health development facilities within the region. Census was used in order to come up with the sample size. The study classified the respondents into strata according to their occupation in the rural health development projects so as to facilitate an equal chance of selection. Therefore, 3 respondents from each rural health facilities were picked as the respondents, given that there was only one CDF chairman in the constituency, thus totalling to a sample size of 85 respondents.The data collection instrument that was used in this study was structured questionnaires which took the form of a likert scale questionnaire. In order to capture potential weaknesses of the research instrument, procedure, and of the information gathered by the research questionnaire, a pilot study was conducted. After data had been collected from the respondents, it was analyzed using SPSS (Statistical package for Social Sciences) to generate describe and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics included measures of the mean, standard deviation and frequencies of the responses generated from the questionnaires. Inferential statistics on the other hand was measure regression, correlation of coefficients for purposes of showing the relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variable. The study found that most of the respondents 82% (mean=4.1) were of the view that the government has allocated sufficient funds for development of rural health projects, the CDF in Turbo is allocated some funds to oversee the development of these projects and plan for structures to facilitate development of rural health projects. The findings indicated that a majority of the respondents 90% (mean=4.5) were of the view that the county government has a sessional paper drafted in relation to development of rural health projects, the study also showed that that political groups have affected access of some community groups to health centers established in the constituency, the findings showed that a majority of the respondents 84%(mean=4.2) agreed with the fact that the community as the stakeholder are engaged in the evaluation of the running of the projects. The study concluded that there is need to ensure that project planning is implemented in the entire country as this will ensure that the tax payer’s money and government grants are well utilized and also minimizes cases of embezzlement of funds. It further states that today’s highly competitive environment, managing resources effectively which can also have a significant impact on the results of a project. Another conclusion was that resources are the essential ingredients required for the implementation of projects and the element of scarcity of resources constitutes a serious limitation to the attainment of projects’ goals and objectives. The study recommends that projects have to be properly planned through careful selection and implementation of programs and projects in such an efficient and effective manner to facilitate the realization or achievement of goals and objectives.