Project Exit Strategies, Stakeholders Management, and Project Sustainability of Donor-funded Livelihood Projects in Kilifi County, Kenya

Abstract

Donor agencies have heavily funded livelihood programs and projects in Kilifi County but these projects struggle with sustainability with some halting operations immediately after the funding is withdrawn. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of project exit strategies on the sustainability of donor-funded livelihood projects; and moderating influence of the stakeholder management on the relationship between the project exit strategies and project sustainability of donor-funded livelihood projects in Kilifi County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to establish how capacity building exit strategy; project support linkage exit strategy; monitoring and evaluation exit strategy; combined exit strategies, stakeholder management influence the sustainability of donor-funded livelihood projects in Kilifi County. The study was guided by discovery learning theory; diffusion of innovation theory; and theory of stakeholder management. The pragmatic paradigm and descriptive correlational research design were used. A sample size of 170 was selected from a population of 295 from three livelihood projects using Slovin’s formula. Three separate focus group discussions were carried out with men in Gandini; women in Dodosa; and the project committee. Separate semi-standardized one-on-one interviews were carried out with 7 key informants. Before data analysis statistical assumptions were tested. Standard deviations, standard error of means, and arithmetic means were used for descriptive analysis while Pearson’s Product moment correlation and linear regression, F-tests, and t-tests were used for inferential analysis using statistical package for social sciences version 25. It was established that the mean perception of sustainability did not differ significantly with projects, gender, age, and marital status. However, there was a significant difference in mean perception of sustainability of projects among the different groups based on the highest level of education attained and duration of stay in the project. Of the six formulated research hypotheses, five were rejected while one was not rejected. It was concluded that capacity building exit strategy, support service linkages, monitoring and evaluation, combined project exit strategies, and stakeholder management significantly influenced projects. There was no moderating influence between stakeholder management and the combined project exit strategies. The study found that each factor has an incremental contribution to the dependent variable when other elements are constant. Findings point out that policies should be reviewed or formulated to provide an enabling environment and culture that will support capacity building initiatives such as training, appropriate technologies, enhance resource capacities; access to support services such as government affordable private extension services, affordable and readily available credit, markets; participatory, timely and monitoring and evaluation processes; and collaborative arrangements among players. Further, the use of simple and direct Likert items, use of mixed methods with diverse projects is recommended. Further studies can investigate such factors as community ownership and project control systems, and diverse project contexts may be studied as moderating variables on the relationship of the project exit strategies and project sustainability