DETERMINANTS OF EFFECTIVE MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF GOVERNMENT FUNDED WATER PROJECTS IN KENYA: A CASE OF NAIROBI COUNTY

Abstract

Monitoring and evaluation of projects in Kenya is very critical because lot government resources are provided to organizations to implement various water projects. Not only does best practices require that projects are monitored for control but also project stakeholders require transparency, accountability for resource use and impact, good project performance and organizational learning to benefit future projects. The Government of Kenya invests a lot of funds in a number of water development projects in the urban areas which is as a result of high level of poverty, rapid increase of population and weather variability. However, most of these projects experience performance challenges in terms of completion thereby leading to confusion and uncertainty in implementation of project activities due to ineffective monitoring and evaluation. This is significant pointer that the government water funded projects in Nairobi County may stall and fail to be completed within the stipulated time period as set out in their logical framework. The general objective of this study was to examine the influence of monitoring and evaluation on performance of water projects performance in Kenya. The study was built upon the Stakeholder Theory; Resource based theory, Theory of constraints and Rogers Innovation Diffusion Theory. The specific objectives of the study was to determine the influence of technology, stakeholder involvement, project team and budgetary allocation on effective monitoring and evaluation of government water funded projects in Kenya. The study adopted descriptive design survey approach and targeted 417 employees and sample of 42 employees or 10% of the target population was considered. The stratified sampling technique method was used and primary data was collected through the use of questionnaires. On the other hand, secondary data was obtained from published documents such as journals, periodicals, magazines and reports to supplement the primary data. A pilot study was conducted to pretest the validity and reliability of instruments for data collection. The data was analyzed with help of SPSS version 21 and Excel and presented in charts and graphs to facilitate comparisons and conclusions. The study variables were regressed at 5% level of significance to establish the strength and direction of their relationship.