STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND SUSTAINABILITY OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS, IMPLEMENTED BY PLAN INTERNATIONAL IN KILIFI COUNTY, IN KENYA.

Abstract

Worldwide, billions of shillings have been consumed in communities to expand the living condition of the people. Nevertheless, one of the most serious problems is the extent to which the developments are able to continue despite the departure of donors, while the beneficiaries gain extras; appreciate their contribution and ownership role in the project. Apparently, sustainability makes the change between achievement and failure of community-development projects. The researcher carried out the study on stakeholder’s participation and sustainability of community development projects implemented by Plan International in Kilifi County. The independent variables under study were interactive participation, functional participation, project monitoring and passive participation influence stakeholder participation on community development projects. The target population was 96 respondents and the study adopted census sampling technique. Data was collected by use of questionnaires. Data was analyzed by use of Statistical Package Social Science (SPSS) version 24.0. Summarized data was presented using percentages and be presented using tables. Research ethics was observed before, during and after carrying out the research. The findings indicated that all the four factors which include, interactive participation, functional participation, project monitoring and passive participation are statistically significant on sustainability of community development projects. The regression equation showed that even by excluding the four study variables, sustainability of community project would be 0.087. The findings also indicate that a unit change in interactive participation would result in 0.373 change in sustainability of community project, a unit change in functional participation would result in 0.469 change in sustainability of community project, a unit change in project monitoring would result in 0.374 change in sustainability of community project and a unit change in passive participation would result in 0.561 change in sustainability of community project. The study indicated that all the variables were statistically significant since the p value was less than 0.05. The recommendations of the study are as follows. Plan International should ensure local community are involved when making decisions, goals and objectives should be stipulated by both Plan International and Local community. Staff should have adequate skills when implementing projects and should be trained on continuous basis and the organization should give community a chance to present their opinions. Plan International needs to reduce the extent of engaging stakeholder passively, ensure there is interactive participation, coordinate functional participation among stakeholders.