Community Participation in Project Decision Making and Sustainability of Community Water Projects in Kenya

Abstract

Water sector has been undergoing various reforms in the past decade aimed at promoting projects sustainability. There is a general acceptance that community project participation influence project performance, however the influence of participation in decision making on sustainability of community water projects is not clear. This study sought to establish the influence of community participation in decision making on sustainability of community water projects in Kenya, a case of Nyeri County. The study adopted a mixed method research anchored on a concurrent triangulation. The study was conducted in three sub counties of Nyeri County, Tetu, Mathira and Nyeri central which had a total of 10 water projects with 1052 beneficiaries. Respondents for this study comprised three strata. In the first strata were water project beneficiaries picked using Yamane formula (1967) and resulted into a sample size of 290 and later proportionately stratified across the ten water projects. Individual respondents of beneficiaries were identified using a systematic sampling procedure and subjected to self administered questionnaire. Out of 290 contacted respondents 207 positively responded to the survey questionnaire representing 71.38 percent successful return rate. The second strata comprised of 8 respondents who were included in focus group discussions of which 3 were committee members purposely selected and 5 randomly selected ordinary project beneficiaries. The third strata comprised of 10 water officers one each from the 10 water who were subjected to a semi structured interview. Instrument validity was ensured with input from two supervisors from the University of Nairobi while reliability was determined using a split-half testing technique. Quantitative data was analyzed using linear regression model in SPSS software. The study established a significant independent influence at (p < 0.000) of community participation; in decision making on sustainability of community water projects at 5% level of significance. The increasing strength of participation from weak, moderate to strong was positively correlated to the level of project sustainability. To guarantee project sustainability the study recommends that community projects ensure project beneficiaries are involved in all the stages of the project implementation and management.