| dc.description.abstract | In recent years the Kenyan government has stepped up efforts to find a lasting solution to the
problem of extreme poverty and hunger which has ravaged many parts of the country. Towards
this end, the government has joined forces with various stakeholders to ensure that efforts
towards this noble objective are sustainable in order to ensure a lasting solution to the problem of
poverty, hunger and to achieve MDGs. Similarly the United Nations has laid prominence on the
MDGs as a one way ticket out of poverty and hunger problems across the world. Interventions
towards this are implemented through the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) which was piloted
in Ganze Constituency, Kilifi County, Kenya in the year 2005. MVP is a collaborative approach
between the Millennium promise alliance, the UNDP, the Ministry of Planning and National
Development together with the Department of Special Projects. The study was necessitated by
the fact the past model villages interventions along which MVP is modeled were not successful
beyond the level of pilot project. The study was guided by five objectives; to determine how
poverty levels influence the sustainability of donor projects, to examine how community
participation influences the sustainability of donor projects, to establish the extent to which
government strategies contribute to sustainability of donor projects, to examine how donor’s role
contributes to donor funded projects in Ganze and finally to assess how the management
practices of projects influences the sustainability of donor funded projects in Ganze constituency
within Kilifi County.Review of relevant literature revealed that development industry as a whole
has a poor track record in designing and implementing sustainable projects in the field indicating
the need for conducting research to establish factors that influence the sustainability of benefits
and outcomes of such projects. The research adopted a descriptive design employing the use of
questionnaires, key informant interviews and direct observation as the primary data collection
tools. The sample size was 200 from an accessible population of beneficiaries. The respondents
for the study were selected using cluster sampling. Direct observation was used to collect data on
completed and continuing project activities. The findings indicated that community participation
was a significant contributor to sustainability of projects in Ganze. Another emphasis that the
researcher made was the donor’s role in projects, government strategies and management
practices in implementing of donor funded projects. The researcher realized a thin margin
between community participation and the government strategies in implementing projects since
both of them had similar characteristics and involved a muscled effort in sustaining projects
within a community. In order to achieve sustainable projects implemented within a community,
there has to be a correlation and a chain of connectivity of various aspects and indicators. This
study therefore concludes that community participation donor role, management practices and
government strategies are all factors that influence the sustainability of donor funded projects.
However, there was little evidence on the correlation between poverty levels and sustainability of
donor funded projects. It is therefore recommended that there be community sensitization on the
entire project cycle. There is also need for a comprehensive strategy to incorporate all actors to
ensure the sustainability of donor funded projects. | en |
