Influence of project implementation strategies on performance of community projects in Kenya: A case of young mothers project by hand in hand Eastern Africa, Kiambu county

Abstract

This research sought to examine the influence of project implementation strategies on performance of community projects: A case of young mothers project by Hand in Hand Eastern Africa, Kiambu County. Statistics indicate Kenya received US$404 million in international humanitarian assistance in 2012, making it the eleventh largest recipient of donor aid. In 2011, Kenya received $537 million in official humanitarian assistance making it the world’s eighth largest recipient of aid. In one of its studies, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) study found that only half of its African projects succeed and many other donors have not done much better. The failure was attributed to implementation approach adopted. Project implementation strategy is an emerging concept in research literature on project management and it entails the creation of a customizable framework that helps project managers to set up and manage project implementation stages and achieve project objectives in a timely manner and meeting expectations of stakeholders. This research work sought to examine the influence of project implementation strategies on performance of community projects, a case of young mother’s project by Hand in Hand Eastern Africa in Kiambu County, Kenya. The study was guided by four objectives; project design strategy, monitoring and evaluation strategy, resource management strategy and stakeholders engagement strategy. Each of the four objectives proposed on the study, was used to test each of the four hypotheses. The study was delimited to Young mothers’ project by Hand in Hand Eastern Africa in Kiambu County with focus on Kiambu, Limuru, Thika and Gatundu areas and to the four study variables. The study was grounded on the project implementation theory as the key theoretical model. The study adopted a descriptive survey design with a target population of 62 staff members of Hand in Hand Eastern Africa directly involved in the young mothers project implementation, comprised of six strata namely; top management, management level one, management level two, branch managers, project accountants and business relationship officers and 56 individuals were selected to constitute the sample size for the study. To achieve the desired representation, stratified sampling was used. A six level questionnaire with structured questions having a 5-point Likert scale was used for data collection. Reliability was determined by the CronbachAlpha Coefficient. Pilot testing of the questionnaire was done two weeks before the study with six respondents, not included in the final study. Data collected was cleaned, tabulated and analyzed using SPSS Version 19.0. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to measure statistical dependence of variables and hypothesis was tested. The study found out all the four independent variables on project implementation strategies had a positive correlation on the dependent variable-performance of Hand in Hand Eastern Africa young mothers’ project in Kiambu County. The study further found a significant relationship between all the four independent variables with the dependent variable Spearman’s rank correlation of 0.515 for project design strategy, 0.408 on monitoring and evaluation strategy, 0.635 on resource management strategy and 0.490 on stakeholders’ engagement strategy. Therefore, the four hypotheses tested on project design strategy on performance of community project, monitoring an evaluation strategy on performance of community project, resource management strategy on performance of community project and stakeholders’ engagement strategy on performance of community project were therefore not rejected. The study recommends holistic approach and organizational commitment to the implementation strategies studied, especially funds, human resource and M &E strategies, which are crucial to the performance of community projects.