Stakeholder Participation in Needs Assessment and Sustainability of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Projects in Mount Elgon Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Most projects are customized in project management. Hence, successful accomplishment of the projects requires stakeholder participation. Moreover, the management of stakeholder’s participation in OVC projects is1 receiving more concentration in practice. The objective of the study was to establish the influence of stakeholder participation on sustainability of OVC projects in Mount Elgon Sub-County, Kenya. We sought to establish the influence of stakeholder participation in needs assessment on sustainability of OVC projects in Mount Elgon Sub-County, Kenya. The two grounding theories were; Freeman’s stakeholder theory and resource-based theory. The study employed a descriptive survey research design with a target population of 176 and a sample size of 122 stakeholders. The study applied quantitative methods of data collection. The questionnaires were pre-coded to ease data entry. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS to obtain frequency distributions, percentages, mean and standard deviations. The study findings delineates that stakeholder participation in needs assessment is significant in influencing sustainability of OVC projects with correlation coefficients of (r=0.623; P<0.000). The study concluded that stakeholder participation in need assessment significantly influences sustainability of OVC projects. The study subsequently recommended that stakeholder participation in needs assessment should be comprehensively undertaken during implementation of OVC projects in order to enhance their sustainability.