Monitoring and evaluation factors influencing The performance of road infrastructural projects: A case study of Nyandarua county, Kenya.

Abstract

This study set out to examine the influence played by monitoring and evaluation (M&E) factors on performance of road project performance in Nyandarua County. The study examined how M&E factors, influence project performance deliverables, such completion within the set time and cost as well as achieving the right quality. This study was guided by the following objectives: To determine how M&E agency factor influences performance of road projects in Nyandarua County: To examine the extent to which M&E budgetary allocation factor influences performance of road projects: To assess how Management Information Systems used in M&E influences performance of road projects in Nyandarua County: To assess to what extent capacity building in M&E influences performance of infrastructural projects in Nyandarua County. The research study adopted a descriptive research design to assess whether M&E factors influences the performance of road infrastructure projects. The study targeted the employees of the Nyandarua county who are directly or indirectly involved in monitoring and evaluation of road projects. The study target population involved the project managers, field officers, employees in finance and procurement departments as well as employees in infrastructure and road department. Due to the need to get specific information with specific people, purposive sampling was used to acquire sample from the target population. The data was drawn from the personal perspectives of respondents, documentation (reports and evaluations) and interviews. Descriptive analysis of the data collected was mainly done in narrative form using descriptive statistics and Tables as appropriate. The results were assessed on whether they agree with other similar studies done previously. The study found that the employees in the county were not trained on monitoring and evaluation of projects. This is because a few of them did needs assessment before initiating projects, however, no planning was done for monitoring and evaluation, there was no monitoring of project schedules and expenditure, no dissemination of information or documentation of lessons learnt. Most of the employees charged with management of road projects and more so monitoring and evaluation were not aware of the budgetary allocation for monitoring and evaluation or what proportion it was of the total project budget. Surprisingly, most of them could not tell the current budgets for their projects, too. It also found out that there is very poor management of monitoring and evaluation information. The inadequacy of the management of information system was characterized by poor means of monitoring and evaluation data storage, poor data processing, poor means of dissemination of monitoring and evaluation information. The results showed that primary beneficiaries (the community) of the projects generally did not participate in monitoring and evaluation of road projects and was heavily influenced by politics. Participation by other agencies in monitoring and evaluation was very low. Nyandarua County needs to improve information management system, increase budgetary allocation, agency participation and capacity building in monitoring and evaluation in order to improve road project performance