Influence of community participation on performance of constituency development funded rural borehole water projects: a case of Kerwa sub-location, Kiambu county, Kenya.

Abstract

Community water projects in Kerwa sub-location play a significant role in provision of water for domestic use and small-scale farming. The area is generally characterized by lack of significant amount of surface water. This condition has lead various stakeholders such as the government through the Constituency Development Fund, donors and the local community to pull resources together in an effort to provide safe and clean water to the residents by establishing community borehole water projects. However, some of the water projects had not performed up to the expectations of the residents at the time of the study. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of community participation on performance of Constituency Development Funded rural borehole water projects in Kerwa sub-location, Kiambu County, Kenya. The objectives of the study centered on the following issues in regard to the performance of CDF funded water projects in Kerwa; the influence of Community Participation in Financial management, participation in project Governance, participation in Operation and Maintenance and participation in Monitoring and Evaluation. Descriptive survey research design was employed in the study, where questionnaires were administered to household representatives and management committee members interviewed. The data collected from questionnaires was coded, cleaned and analyzed using descriptive data analysis and cross tabulation in order to generate mean, frequency tables and percentages. Purposive sampling procedure was applied to select Podo and Nyakianda water projects out of the five CDF funded community borehole water projects based on their homogeneity at the time of the study. The target population of the study was 238 and it consisted of 220 household representatives and 18 management committee members from Nyakianda and Podo water projects. Simple random sampling technique was applied to select 66 household representatives and 6 management committee members from the two water projects. The findings of the study revealed that where Community Participation in Financial management, Governance, Operation & Maintenance and Monitoring & Evaluation of community water projects was high, the performance of the projects in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, functionality, sustainability and improvement of livelihood was high and vice versa. It was therefore inferred that the high ranking of performance of Podo water project was linked to the high level of Community Participation in the identified parameters. On the other hand, the low ranking of performance of Nyakianda water project was allied to the low level of community participation. Some of the recommendations made for the study include the need for training and capacity building programmes to sensitize the community to actively participate in community water projects.