ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS INFLUENCING SUSTAINABILITY OF COMMUNITY WATER PROJECTS IN GARISSA COUNTY: A CASE OF RAYA WATER PROJECT

Abstract

The sustainability of Raya water project in Garissa, aimed at distributing water to the residents from Tana River is questionable where its ability to meet demand has drastically decreased, provision of quality water has been affected and the costing of water has increased. In order to maintain sustainability, there was a need for a review of the water project and the determining factors hence a need for this study. This study conducted an analysis of the organizational factors affecting sustainability of community water projects in Garissa County taking a case of Raya Water Project. The study focused on organization related factors such as technical capacity, resource allocation, technology adoption and stakeholder participation. A descriptive research design was adopted where a survey was conducted on project officers, water agency representatives and Community Based Organization (CBO) household representatives. The target population was 12 Raya Water project officers, 165 CBO representatives and 12 water representatives from the Water Resource User’s Associations, county and national governments. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. Therefore, quantitative data was collected and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings indicated that the community water projects in Garissa County have a technical capacity to manage the water to a high extent; resources have been allocated to a moderate extent towards management of community water projects; technology has been adopted to manage the water projects to a high extent and stakeholder participation in community water projects is conducted to a moderate extent. The inferential statistics indicated that an improvement in stakeholder participation, technology adoption and resource allocation can significantly improve sustainability of community water projects. However, as at the moment, the current technical expertise is at a moderate extent hence not able to significantly improve sustainability of the water projects. This thus led to the recommendation that in order for the community water projects to improve their sustainability, they need to not only further improve stakeholder participation, technology adoption and resource allocation practices, but also invest towards building their capacity strongly.

Key Words: Technical Capacity, Resource Allocation, Technology Adoption, Stakeholder Participation