Determinants Of Sustainability Of Donor Funded Projects: The Case Of Selected Projects In Ganze Constituency In Kilifi County, Kenya

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.