Factors Influencing Sustainability Of Donor Funded Water Projects In Machakos County Kenya

Abstract

Sustainability is a strategy by which an organization ensures that there is continued growth and development strategy that continues to operate in the unforeseeable future. The strategies must be good such that they should consider advocacy, good leadership, enhanced management and good governance. Donors contribute significantly in processes of development worldwide and play critical roles where there is scarcity in state funds. Globally donor funded projects carry out different activities and programs at different levels. The differences in views and thoughts of the past research indicate presence of information asymmetry on factors that contribute to sustainability of donor funded projects. Though a lot has been done to address the recurring phenomenon of monitoring and evaluation challenges, stakeholder perspective in respect to donor funded projects, the problem is notably still pervasive, requiring further investigations on the community involvement in donor funded projects especially in Machakos County where we have approximately 20 donor funded projects. The study focused on 100 employees from donor funded projects in Machakos County with a sample of 93 and the researcher heavily relied on primary data which was analyzed using SPSS. Data was analyzed using correlation and regression analysis. Presentation of data was done using charts, frequency distribution tables, and bar charts. The study established that community and stakeholder involvement in donor funded projects will promote lead to success of such projects. The study revealed that failure to embrace stakeholder training and learning culture contributed to low stakeholders’ participation in monitoring and evaluation of water projects. The study revealed that attitude of the community affects sustainability of water projects in Machakos County and the community members have the willingness to conserve the project area and that they willingly also provide suggestions and opinions to better the project. Collective measures should be taken to deal with persons vandalizing the community water project. This should be coupled with improved security offered by the security agencies to mitigate the cases of vandalism. The study recommends that a similar study be carried out in other regional water authorities in the country to establish the sustainability of donor funded project