Asha Abdi is an economist by training. She developed an interest in project management in 2013 when she joined the public service and was appointed as the county executive member in charge of finance & economic planning in Isiolo county where her major function was planning, budgeting and coordinating the implementation of all county development projects. In 2016 she decided to take up a masters course in Project Planning and Management at the University of Nairobi in order to broaden her knowledge and expertise in the successful management of projects.
Critical success factors influencing implementation of educational development projects in Mombasa county.
Research Supervisor
Prof. Charles M. Rambo (PhD)
& Dr. Johnbosco M.Kisimbii
The spirit of devolution was purely incepted with a purpose of ensuring citizen have access to government services in the grassroots, unlike in the past when these essential services were centralized in the capital city, and most importantly to improve rural areas by developing those areas. However, despite huge budget being set by the county governments, reports indicate that many development projects in the counties have grounded into a halt and others have been of low quality. In 2016 the county unveiled several educational development projects meant to offer technical skills and spur economic growth in the county. However, majority of educational development projects commissioned by the county government have either taken too long to complete or have been altogether abandoned. The purpose of this study is to investigate the critical success factors influencing implementation of educational development projects in Mombasa County. The study specifically looked at the influence of project financing, project planning, stakeholder involvement and governance on implementation of development projects in Mombasa County. The study was grounded on resource-based view theory, stakeholder theory and theory of project implementation. Descriptive survey research design was employed since it is a strong form of quantitative analysis which provides social unit observation in a complete and careful manner irrespective of the nature of social unit under scrutiny. The target population was 60 participants drawn from the Finance, Economic planning, Infrastructure & Public works, Technical team, Community leaders and Project contractors who are privy to construction of Chaani ECD, Digirikani ECD, and Kwa Jomvu ECD in Mombasa County government. The study used statistical formula for sample size proportion by Yamane to get a sample size of 52 respondents. Structured questionnaires were employed to collect primary data for the study. Collected data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The tool used in the analysis is the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The study findings were presented in frequency and descriptive tables. Based on the inferential statistics, the correlation results showed that all the critical success factors in the study had a moderate positive relationship with implementation of educational development projects and the regression results showed that critical success factors explained 52.9 per cent variation in implementation of educational development projects. The study concludes that the funds allocated to projects implementation by the county government are not sufficient to enable completion of development projects. The study concludes that the whole project procedures are well articulated and the county government observes project timing to ensure the success of project implementation. The researcher recommends that the county leadership should look for other revenue sources of project funding to fill in the gap since the study established that the current funds allocated to development projects are insufficient. The mechanism to arbitrate and resolve project stakeholders’ conflict should be established prior to project implementation. The county leadership should implement accounting systems which are dynamic and strong so as to ensure all the resources earmarked for development projects in the county are prudently utilized.
