An investigation of the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation practice in public projects: A survey of county government projects

Abstract

The Practice of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) has become an increasingly important tool within the global efforts in achieving environmental, economic and social sustainability. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) help those involved with projects to assess if progress is being achieved in line with expectations or not so that reasonable measures can be taken in good time to ensure the project success. While the knowledge on monitoring and evaluation of projects exists, the administrative components of monitoring and evaluation seem to be lacking in the management of county government funded projects. The purpose of this study was to investigate the adequacy of M&E in county government funded projects in Kenya. The study investigated the influence of policy, level of planning, resources and the process on the adequacy of M&E exercise in the county government funded projects in Kenya. The study adopted a survey research design and the target population were the county government projects coordination department members. Two completed projects were sampled from each of the 47 counties in Kenya. 72 out of 94 questionnaires sent to the field were returned translating to 76% response rate. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 16 which involved descriptive and inferential statistics. The study established that policies (r = 0.598, P < 0.01), planning (r = 0.485, P < 0.05), availability of resources (r = 0.584, P < 0.01) and process (r = 0.837, P < 0.01) have a significant influence on the adequacy of M&E of county government funded projects in Kenya. The research has recommended a synthesized model framework developed for M&E of public projects in Kenya which is expected to improve the performance of M&E of the county government projects, the creation of functional Monitoring and Evaluation units in every county which should be integrated into the current public works which will purely be in charge of M&E of the projects and finally the introduction of an ICT system to support M&E exercise since the research discovered that the M&E exercise in the counties still employs the use of traditional approaches