Assessment of Predictors of Sustainability in Community Development Projects. A Survey of CDF Funded Projects Nyeri Town Constituency, Kenya

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Date
2013-08-27
Authors
Limo, Kipkorir Levin
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Abstract
A project is considered to be sustained if it continues to deliver a high level of benefits after the donor ends major financial, managerial, and technical support. The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is a decentralized fund administered at the constituency level. The CDF Act provides that, only projects that benefit the community at large should benefit from CDF funding. Though a significant number of CDF initiated projects since 2003/04 have been successfully completed and are in use, many more have stalled or still ongoing several years after being initiated; others are underutilized or not utilized at all. The purpose of this study was to assess the sustainability of community based projects using the CDF projects in Nyeri Town Constituency. The study aimed to achieve this by investigating the role of funding, community participation, skills in project management committee members and consultation with technical personnel on influence the sustainability of such projects. This study adopted a descriptive survey design targeted all the accessible CDF funded projects in Nyeri Town Constituency between the financial years 2003/04 to 2010/011. Proportionate probability sampling was used to select a sample of 82 projects from the entire constituency from which 60 individuals were drawn from. Data was collected using a questionnaire. The questionnaires were given to two accessible stake holders in each project. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 20 and results presented in form of figures and tables. The study found that funding had a high influence on the sustainability of CDF projects while community involvement had a low influence on the sustainability of CDF projects. Skills in project management were found to have had a high influence on the sustainability of such projects and consultation with technical personnel had a low influence on sustainability. The study concluded that funding was hampered by slow disbursement of funds as well as inadequacy in the amount awarded. The studyrecommended that newly formed county governments should take charge of CDF to eliminate bureaucracy and reduce the time between disbursements and that new strategies on community involvement should be employed to ensure complete participation of the citizenry. It was hoped that the findings would be instrumental in informing on implementation of CDF projects in the constituency and be used to rectify problems witnessed in implementation of the projects as well as giving important guidelines and lessons on how to or not to implement similar projects in future.
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Department of Accounting and Finance,67p.The HD 49 .C6L5 2013
Keywords
Community development --Kenya --Nyeri town constituency
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