Stakeholder Participation and Performance of Funded Project in Rwanda: A Case of Aveh Umurerwa Project in Bugesera District

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine the role of stakeholder participation in project performance of funded project in Rwanda. The specific objectives of the study were based on assessing the role of consultative planning, collective implementation and joint monitoring and project performance of AVEH Umurerwa project in Bugesera District of Rwanda. The study target population was 251 people in which 188 respondents were drawn as a sample size of the study in AVEH Umurerwa project in Bugesera District of Rwanda. The researcher used descriptive research design with a mixed approach of qualitiative and quantitative data. Thus, the study used the questionnaires and interview guides to collect data from the field. The stratified random sampling technique was used to ensure that all the stakeholders of the funded project are selected with the equal chance to participate in the study as from each group of the respondents. The results of the first objective revealed that consultative planning plays a significant and a positive role on performance of funded project in Rwanda since the descriptive results shown 1.621 overall mean and the Pearson correlation results confirmed that there is a positive and significant relationship between consultative planning and quality performance(r=0.712 and sig=0.00<0.01), budgetary performance (r=0.717 and sig=0.00<0.01), and schedule performance (r= 0.783 and sig=0.00<0.01) which implies that there is positive and significant relationship between consultative planning and performance of funded projects in Rwanda. The results of the second objective revealed that collective implementation plays a significant and a positive effect on performance of funded project in Rwanda since the descriptive results shown 1.324 of overall mean; when Pearson correlation results proved a positive and significant relationship between collective implementation and budgetary performance (r=0.647 and sig=0.00<0.01), schedule performance (r=0.639 and sig=0.00<0.01), and quality performance (r= 0.696 and sig=0.00<0.01) which implies that collective implementation has a positive and significant relationship with performance of funded projects in Rwanda. Lastly, the results of the third objective revealed that a big number of respondents strongly agreed that joint monitoring plays a significant role in performance which is also supported by the correlation results which revealed that joint monitoring and budgetary performance has (r=0.650 and sig=0.00<0.01), schedule performance has (r=0.644 and sig=0.00<0.01), and quality performance has (r= 0.705 and sig=0.00<0.01) which implies that there is positive and significant relationship between joint monitoring and performance of funded projects in Rwanda. Thus, basing on the results the researcher concluded that stakeholder participation plays a significant and positive role in performance of funded project in Rwanda. Keywords: Stakeholder Participation, Performance of Funded Projects, Rwanda