Factors Influencing Women Participation in World Food Programme’s Projects in South Sudan: a Case of Food for Assets (Ffa) Projects in Gogrial East County

Abstract

In spite of various efforts to deal with food security and nutrition across the globe, about one in every three people in South Sudan are food insecure with women and children being the most vulnerable. This study was set out to establish the factors influencing women involvement in WFP, Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) Projects in South Sudan: A Case of FFA Projects in Gogrial East County. Research goals were: to assess how culture influence women participation; to examine how literacy influences women participation; to assess the influence of women empowerment on women participation and to explore how assets ownership influences women participation in WFP's FFA projects of Gogrial East County. The anchor theory that provided guidance to this research included Theory of Gender Development and Reasoned Action to expound on the factors that influence women to participate in development projects. To realize these objectives, the investigator applied a descriptive survey. The respondents in this study were women participating in FFA projects and women leaders in Project Management Committee from Gogrial East County. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select the participants, primary information was gathered using semi-structured questionnaires. A 10% proportion of the total population was arbitrarily taken as this is in conformity with Creswell (2003) which asserts that a size of a sample of 10%-50% when the population is high is suitable in descriptive studies. The population targeted included 1393 and therefore the sample size of this study was 139 respondents, and the response rate was 89.93%. Quantitative type of information was analysed using descriptive statistics that includes frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation which. Correlation analysis was applied to explore the link among the variables. The study established that cultural factors hinder women from effectively participating in FFA projects. It was further discovered that literacy levels among women greatly determined their participation in FFA projects, the more educated a woman was, the higher her chances of participation in FFA projects and the converse was true. The study found out that women empowerment led to an increase of the number of women participating in FFA projects. The study found out that asset ownership did not influence women involvement in FFA activities.