AN ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS INFLUENCING PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS IN KITUI CENTRAL SUB-COUNTY, KITUI COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were developed in the 1990s as significant players in national development, thus, bringing about social and economic change in most developing and developed countries (Taylor et al, 2000In this study, the researcher looked into NGOs and CBOs. Many development projects fall below the goal and aim in their performance and also the invested resources go to waste (Standish research report, 2009). In Kenya, the number of community projects that have failed to meet their development goal is significant. This study therefore, has investigate the factors that influence the performance of NGO and CBO projects with particular focus on Kitui Central Sub County of Kitui County in Eastern Kenya because in the current body of research knowledge, no such study has been undertaken by any researcher in Kenya that focuses on the same topical issue. The objectives are to establish the effect of project management skills in the performance of NGO and CBO projects in Kitui Central Sub County,to evaluate how monitoring and evaluation affects the success of NGO and CBO projects in Kitui Central Sub County, to determine how beneficiary involvement affects the performance of NGO and CBO projects in Kitui Central Sub County, to establish how professional orientation affects the performance of NGO and CBO projects in Kitui Central Sub County and to evaluate the effect of executive management’s support to the performance of NGO and CBO projects in Kitui Central Sub County. In this study the researcher used descriptive research design and stratified random sampling technique to get the sample size. Validity was attained by designing questions which correlate, while reliability of the data was calculated using the SPSS software. From the findings of this study the research concluded that; project management skills influences in the performance of NGO and CBO projects to a great extent as they affect the general management of the CBOs/NGOs, that monitoring and evaluation affects the success of NGO and CBO projects though in Kitui west Central Sub-count much was not revealed concerning monitoring and evaluation, that though beneficiary involvement affects the performance of NGO and CBO projects most of the respondents strongly agreed that there was little beneficiaries involvement and that there was good professional orientation and executive management’s which seems affects the performance of NGO and CBO projects.