Influence of management practices on sustainability of youth income generating projects in soy sub-county, Uasin Gishu county, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the influence of management practices on sustainability of the youth income generating projects in Soy Sub-County, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. It focused on leadership, training, financial management and monitoring & evaluation aspects in relation to project sustainability. Descriptive survey research design was adopted with 55 youth groups selected through stratified random sampling where the chairperson and four members of each group were included in the sample. The Sub-County youth officer was involved in an interview with the researcher. The instruments validation exercise was done by the supervisor. Reliability of the instruments was determined through a pilot study where a Cronbach alpha co-efficient of 0.79 was obtained indicating that the instruments were highly reliable. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results were presented in form of tables and percentages. The findings were broadly discussed, conclusions drawn and recommendations made. The study established that training of project managers and members in the day to day running of the projects should be streamlined to ensure project team focus on purpose, strategy and sustainability of their projects within the constraints of time, cost, resources and quality output. It also established that if proper financial records are kept in youth income projects their sustainability would be promoted. Also for a project to be sustainable, experience of the project leader in financial management matters was paramount in youth income projects. Frequent financial reporting on the project progress has an influence on the sustainability of the youth projects. Constant monitoring and evaluation greatly influence sustainability of the youth projects. Periodic Monitoring and Evaluation by expert from the Ministry of Youth or any other area should be incorporate to assist the monitoring and evaluation of these projects so as to make them give quality returns. It is the opinion of the researcher that, if the youth groups in Soy Sub-county are trained on monitoring and evaluation skills their projects would be more effective and sustainable.