FACTORS INFLUENCING PERFORMANCE OF DONOR FUNDED PROJECTS: CASE OF EMBU WATER AND SANITATION COMPANY, EMBU COUNTY, KENYA
Kiara Annita Ngugi - Master of Arts in Project Planning and Management, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Dr. Luketero Stephen Wanyonyi - Senior Lecturer School of Mathematics, University of Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT
The study focused on the factors influencing performance of donor funded projects a case of Embu Water and Sanitation Company, Embu County, Kenya. The study was guided by the following specific objectives; to determine how nature of technology influence performance of Embu water and sanitation donor funded projects, to find out the influence of resource availability on performance of Embu water and sanitation donor funded projects, to find out how the type of donor funding influence performance of Embu water and sanitation donor funded projects, to establish how stakeholders participation influence performance of Embu water and sanitation donor funded projects and to find out how regularity of monitoring influence performance of Embu water and sanitation donor funded projects. The study has five independent variables; nature of technology, resource availability, type of funding, stakeholders’ participation and regularity of monitoring. The moderating variables are government policy and environmental factors while intervening variables are wayleave, demographic factors and socio-cultural factors. The study used descriptive design; the target population was 49; 20 water kiosk attendants, 2 public sanitation facility attendants, 15 Embu water and sanitation company staff, 5 Embu county government officials and Ministry of water officials, 3 administration officers, 4 public health officers and community health workers. The study conducted census by carrying out 100% study on the target population this is because the target population was small and also all the participants were very important in the study and also the donor funded projects focused both on water and sanitation. The data was obtained through administration of questionnaires to the target population and the questions were both open ended and closed ended. The questionnaires were administered by the researcher. The researcher obtained an introductory letter from the university and finally data was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences. The study found out Adoption of technology is very important and it influenced positively performance of donor funded projects in Embu water and Sanitation Company. That adequate resource allocation determines the performance of a project success and adequate funding had a positive influence on the performance donor funded projects. The study concludes that stakeholder involvement to a significant extent impacts on the performance of donor funded project the study noted that good and clear stakeholder’s involvement programme is of great importance in ensuring smooth implementation of donor funded projects. The study indicated that funding that was done through commercial financing/result based financing type of funding was better in terms of operations and timely completion as opposed to funding done through pure grants type of funding. This implies that type of funding influence performance of donor funded projects. Lastly the study concludes that regulatory of monitoring & evaluation influence performance of donor funded projects at very great extent. Monitoring is a very important step-in the project management life cycle. The study made the following recommendations: Both Government and Non-Government organization should buy technology as a whole package, try to make it all within the organization, integrate the system from a variety of bought-in components, or integrate a mixture of bought-in equipment and components developed in-house. The study also recommends that resources need to finish the project and match this with the project design and work plans.
