| dc.description.abstract | study sought to investigate factors that influence implementation of humanitarian assistance programs in emergency contexts as an important step in providing humanitarian actors with realistic recommendations for successfully implementing humanitarian assistance programs in emergencies. Based on a case of Dadaab refugee camp in North Eastern Kenya, the study established that political factors, socio-cultural factors, logistical factors, organization capacity and donors do influence implementation of humanitarian assistance programs in emergencies. The target population for this study consisted of all the 38 humanitarian agencies that implemented humanitarian assistance programs in Dadaab refugee camp and Dadaab host community. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents for the study and since the target population was small, data was collected from all the humanitarian agencies operating in Dadaab. From each humanitarian agency, one Project officer was selected for data collection.
The selection of the Project Officers as the respondents was based on the fact that project officers represented in most humanitarian coordination forums as well as implementation of program activities. Descriptive statistics was then used to analyze the quantitative data that was collected regarding the factors that influence implementation of humanitarian assistance programs and a statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used as a tool for data analysis. The findings of the study were then presented inform of Tables and percentages. From the findings, it was concluded that political factors influence implementation of humanitarian assistance programs in emergencies and the most common political risk faced by humanitarian agencies was nepotism. Political activists' presence in the area and their participation in humanitarian forums influenced humanitarian activities by demanding for local recruitment of staffs, local tendering and procurement opportunities. It was also concluded that socio-cultural factors including language, religion, and gender role and task allocation of the target group directly influence d implementation of humanitarian assistance programs. For this reason it was recommended that humanitarian agencies should involve all stakeholders in implementation of program activities.
However, humanitarian activities should be conducted with a lot of transparency and accountability to mitigate political risks that can negatively influence their activities. It was further concluded that organization capacity which includes the level of experience of the humanitarian agencies, funds mobilization capacity of the humanitarian agencies and the nature of the staffs contracted by humanitarian agencies has direct influence on implementation of humanitarian. activities in emergency contexts. For this reason, it was recommended that humanitarian agencies should invest their funds on hiring necessary human resource and continue to engage their staffs on short term training to enhance their capacity to mobilize funds for the organization and to effectively implement the organizations' activities. Moreover, it was concluded that logistical factors which include means of transport, security and communication network coverage influence implementation of humanitarian assistance programs in emergencies and therefore good logistical planning and coordination mechanisms should be put in place by humanitarian agencies. Finally, from the findings of this study, it was concluded that donor conditions influence implementation of humanitarian assistance programs in emergencies through the regulations and procedures donors set for humanitarian agencies whenever they fund their operations | en_US |
