Influence of community participation on performance of development projects in Makueni county, Kenya.
Abstract
Despite efforts made by the government and other development actors to improve
social, political and economic welfare in Kenya through development projects,
recent welfare monitoring survey indicate that poverty is on the increase due to
poor performance of the already initiated development projects and also shortlifetime
of projects upon completion. The purpose of this study was to investigate
the influence of community participation on development project performance in
Makueni County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were: to determine the
influence of involvement of community in information sharing, to establish the
influence of involvement of community in resource contribution, to evaluate the
influence of involvement of community in collective decision making and to
determine the influence of involvement of community in project governance on
development project performance. The study was conducted in Makueni. The
literature was reviewed in the light of study variables on the role of community
participation on development project performance. Descriptive survey design was
used to establish relationships between independent and dependent variables. The
research employed Arnstein Sherry theory for citizen participation. The target
population was 1626 respondents comprising of 126 project management
committees and 1500 community members. The samples were considered because
they were key stakeholders in determining project performance in the study area.
The sample size was 38 project management committee members and 150
community members benefitting from the project selected using purposive and
systemic random sampling method. A semi structured questionnaire was used for
data collection. The findings from the study indicated that communities have not
fully participated in project cycle especially in monitoring and evaluation,
training, resource contribution and decision making. However, this is due to
limited economic resources and failure for community not to fully understand
their roles in projects. The study established that community participation through
information sharing, resource contribution, collective decision making and project
governance have contributed extensively towards development project
performance. The study reveals that some interventions needs to be undertaken in
order to achieve optimum community participation. The researcher suggested
recommendations that the County government to carry out a stakeholder mapping
exercise in order to profile all stakeholders undertaking development initiatives.
Also need for development actors initiate civic education forums with objective of
creating awareness on role of the Community on issues decision making and good
governance. Development actors to involve community when developing project
plans to enable community to identify resources which they can contribute.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [5979]
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