Linking Governance to Performance of Government-funded Projects in Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify project governance practices that affect the performance of government funded projects, especially in developing economies such as Kenya. Research has shown that successful project implementation plays a major role in building a country’s economy. Despite this fact, failure in such projects is persistently being witnessed. To understand this, extant literature was conducted on project governance and performance of projects. Various studies seem to agree that project governance is a major project success factor that ensures project success criteria is met. While this has been renowned, there is no set of agreed upon project governance practices that suits all types of projects and consequently these practices will be determined by the specific project context. This then formed the basis of the study. Four governance practices are identified as contractual governance, business model governance, project risk governance and monitoring and control that if implemented well in projects may increase chances of project success. Future studies should however be geared towards developing a comprehensive list of project governance practices.