Effect of donor funding on success of community development projects in Kenya: a case of donor funded water projects in Embu county.

Abstract

This study assessed the effects that donor funding has on the success of community developments in Kenya, and is based on donor funded water projects in Embu county. There are numerous donor funded projects all over the country to help eradicate poverty and improve livelihood of communities living in abject poverty. The main objective of the study was to assess the effects that donor funding has on the level of success of community development projects and it had three specific objectives: To investigate the effects of grants by donors on success of community development projects in Embu County, to determine the effects of training and development on success of community development projects in Embu County and finally to assess the effects of stakeholder involvement on success of community development projects in Embu County. The population of study was 1853 people who are members of the 20 water projects that formed the basis of this study. A sample of 330 respondents was chosen using a two stage sampling procedure. Out of the sample of 330, 290 respondents formed the final sample since 40 respondents didn’t return their questionnaires. After data collection, cleaning, entry, and coding, the researcher started analysis by reporting on the analysis of demographic variables. He then carried out a multiple regression analysis to investigate the relationship between the independent factors and the dependent variable. Results of data analysis indicated that all independent variables had a positive and significant effect on the level of success of community development projects. A unit increase in donor grants would lead to a 0.324 increase in success of community development projects; a unit increase in training and development would lead to a 0.216 increase in success of community development projects and a unit increase in stakeholder involvement would lead to a 0.462 increase in success of community development projects. The ANOVA test had a p value of 0.000. This showed that the overall fitted model was significant. The r square was 0.834, indicating that 83.4% of variability in the level of success of community development projects can be explained by variations in donor grants, training and development, and stakeholder involvement.