| dc.description.abstract | Donor funded projects continue to complement government socio-economic developmental initiatives in Samburu Country aimed at empowering the locals. With budgetary pressures globally, however, the continued support towards the projects in the County is in doubt. This raises concerns with cases of many beneficiaries becoming more vulnerable and marginalized. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of technical assistance on sustainability of selected donor funded projects (DFPs) in Samburu County. It also sought to establish the moderating influence of community participation and socioeconomic environment on the relationship between technical assistance and the sustainability of selected DFPs in Samburu County. To realize this, six specific objectives were evaluated guided by equal number of research questions and hypotheses. A review of literature was done and established that although there are numerous studies on the sustainability of donor funded projects, there are few empirical studies conducted showing the influence of technical assistance on sustainability of the projects and how this is moderated by community participation and socio-economic environment. The study was guided by pragmatism paradigm. Both correlational and cross sectional research designs were applied in the study. Using stratified random sampling the study obtained a sample of 137 from a population of 213. A structured questionnaire with Likert-type interval scale anchored on a five-point scale was used to collect primary data. Interview guide and document review techniques were used to triangulate the results. Tests for statistical assumptions showed all the variable had a normal distribution of the data, with the W statistic value, above 0.8 for each variable. The scatter diagram showed that the data was linearly distributed. The tests also confirmed that the variables had no multicolinearity, with Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation used to test the direction and strength of the relationships between the variables. Using F-tests, the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that technical assistance (R2 = 26.1, F=18.722, P = 0.000 < 0.05), community participation (R2 = 23.8, F= 14.984, p = 0.000 < 0.05) independently influenced sustainability of donor funded project significantly and that technical assistance, community participation and socio-economic environment jointly influenced (R2 = 53.40, F = 17.92, p = 0.000 < 0.05) sustainability of donor funded projects significantly. The study however, established that community participation (R2 = 30.1, F = 6.276, p = 0.069 > 0.05) and socio-economic environment (R2 = 23.2, F = 0.492, p = 0.486 > 0.05) separately insignificantly moderated the relationship between technical assistance and sustainability of donor funded projects. The study recommends sustained technical assistance towards the project staff and the community aimed at enhancing organizational processes by paying attention to organizational structure, policies and procedures. The study also recommends empowering project staff and community with project management skills ranging from proposal and grant writing, formulation of project idea, planning and budgeting and monitoring and evaluation. Further, mentorship which must be looked at as a component for effective capacity building is recommended as well as adoption of a business model aimed at sustainability through partnerships to bring on board a range of other applicable skills that may benefit the project in the long-term. The study recommends a comparative analysis of sustainability of donor funded projects across counties to examine which counties in the country are more vulnerable while documenting the best practices and also sector specific analysis. | en_US |
