Assesment of Stakeholder Participation as Criterion for Sustainability of Community Based Public Health Projects in Western Kenya

Abstract

Community based projects are the basis for sustainable socio-economic development of most nations in the developing world. Consequently, such projects should be planned and designed to benefit communities over a long period. In Kenya, existing literature indicates that most of these projects don’t stand the test of time. Incidences of projects stalling soon after commissioning have been reported in many parts of the country. It is in this vain that as events unfold, organizations and institutions are integrating the principles of sustainability in project management in order to ensure projects serve the communities for a long time as envisioned. This study was carried out in Western Kenya. It assessed the role of stakeholder participation in the sustainability of community based public health projects. Funding was considered as a moderating variable. The study adopted descriptive survey design. A sample of 360 respondents was purposely sampled from of a population of 5570 committee members of various public health facilities. Data was sourced through questionnaires, interview schedules, and document analysis and observation checklists. Data was analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. The computations for correlation on the influence of stakeholder participation on sustainability was at value r = 0.713, with a coefficient of determination at 0.508. This translates to 50.8%, of change in project sustainability is attributable of stakeholder participation. ANOVA was at R value of o.901, implies 81.2 % of change in sustainability could be explained by stakeholder participation. Further, the rate of change, computed at Y= 0.945X+5.648, implied positive change, at rate of 0.945 between the two variables. Consequently, the study recommended, that for public health projects to sustainably serve communities, players must adopt stakeholder participation, amongst others parameters in project design, planning and sustainability.