Performance Of Development Projects Research Articles

Influence of Socio-Economic Factors on Performance of Road Construction Projects: A Case of Berbera Corridor Road Section between Hargeisa and Berbera

Road projects play a very significant role in post conflict rehabilitation and consolidation of peace and economic stability, growth and development of communities. The Berbera corrido is one of the multimillion projects relevant and important to research. It promotes connectivity of areas internally and across the borders. The study aimed to assess the economic performance of road construction projects on the Berbera Corridor road section between Hargeisa and Berbera, taking into account the socio-economic factors that influenced the performance of these projects. The objectives of the study were; to find out the socio-economic impact of the Berbera-Hargeisa; the socio economic factors that influenced the performance of the Berbera road development project; to assess the best practices used by the Berbera road development contractors between Hargeisa and Berbera. The key questions answered are the socioeconomic impacts of road development in the Berbera Corridor road section between Hargeisa and Berbera the socio-economic factors driving performance of road construction projects in the region as well as best practices used on road development of the Berbera Corridor road section between Hargeisa and Berbera. The study focused on communities traversed by Berbera Corridor, road section of Berbera and Hargeisa cities. Responses were also elicited from the project team, the ministry of public works and road Construction agency of Somaliland and Dubai Port World staff for their oversight and funding of the road project. The theories and models that informed the study were; the best value procurement model and Project logic. Findings revealed that effectiveness, efficiency and impact created by the Berbera road section between the port and the capital city. Social influence on health and environment safety and accidents increased in the short run. However, the economic measures and controls used led to completion of the road and reduced the travel time. Accidents reduced though after the road completed despite people not following the user precautions. Significantly, factors such as price, quality of staff, cultural issues, economic benefits and value anticipated by communities and implementers enabled performance of projects in regard to finish time, reduced accidents and business activities.

Role of Project Environment on Performance of Community Development Project. A Case of the Climate Resilient Post Harvest Agribusiness Support Project (PASP) IFAD-funded Project in Kirehe District, Rwanda

Role of Project Environment on Performance of Community Development Project. A Case of the Climate Resilient Post Harvest Agribusiness Support Project (PASP) IFAD-funded Project in Kirehe District, Rwanda

Effect of Project Risk Management on Performance of Social Development Projects in Rwanda: A Case of VUP Financial Services Project in Gakenke District

Effect of Project Risk Management on Performance of Social Development Projects in Rwanda: A Case of VUP Financial Services Project in Gakenke District

Identifying Significant Policy Barriers for Highway Development in Indonesia

The development of the Sumatera Toll Road has encountered numerous challenges, including insufficient government intervention, legal issues, ineffective decision-making processes, and other related concerns. The objective of this research is to identify significant policy barriers affecting the performance of the Trans-Sumatra toll road development project. Methods: A questionnaire was administered to a group of seven experts who possessed a minimum of ten years of professional experience and had completed undergraduate education. The responses obtained from the experts were subsequently analyzed using the proposed rough Delphi method. Results: 11 indicators become significant policy barriers during the development process of the Sumatra toll road project. There are delays in project permits and approvals, government intervention, domestic political situations, corruption, SPV breaks policy, contract conflicts, policy and regulation changes, a lack of supporting policies for investors, land status, a lack of standard contract agreements, and a lack of regulatory supervisory and legal systems. Conclusion: The results presented in this paper are important to be considered by the Indonesian government’s government to understand the implementation situation of transportation projects, especially the construction of the Trans-Sumatra toll road.

Influence of Knowledge Acquisition Practices on the Performance of County Development Projects in Meru County Government

Public infrastructure projects have progressed at a moderate rate since independence. The information provided by the Kenyan government in 2014 regarding their vision for 2030, aiming to make Kenya an internationally competitive and prosperous nation, shows that the slow progress in implementing public infrastructure projects has resulted in inadequate road networks, underdeveloped public facilities, a lack of connectivity between rural areas and industrial hubs, insufficient measures to mitigate challenges in agricultural regions, and a decline in formerly thriving industries. County governments face a significant challenge in effectively utilizing knowledge management within project management to maximize their outcomes. This research aimed to ascertain whether knowledge acquisition practices influences performance of county development projects in Meru County Government. The research was conducted in a descriptive manner. It targeted a total of 139 respondents from nine Sub-counties in Meru County, including members of county assemblies (MCAs), sub-county departmental heads, project management committee members, and county chief officers. A sample of 103 individuals was selected from the population to participate in the survey. Structured questionnaires were used as the primary research tool to collect data from the population. The responses were coded and categorized accordingly. The data collected was inputted into SPSS 27.0 and MS Excel for further computational analysis. The study revealed a strong correlation coefficient, with an R value of 0.897, indicating a high level of correlation between the variables. The adjusted R-squared value, which was 0.801, suggested that variations in county development projects were significantly influenced by the independent variable. The study's findings suggest that knowledge acquisition had a positive impact on the performance of the county development projects in Meru County. To enhance this positive influence, the study recommends that the public service engage with technical experts in specific fields for knowledge creation, emphasize the value of employees, organize formal training sessions for new knowledge creation, plan seminars for knowledge sharing, and ensure that staff members are trained in diverse tasks to facilitate information exchange. Furthermore, it is recommended that training programs encompass a wide range of tasks and duties to promote knowledge sharing among staff.

Mechanisms of Learning and Innovation in Project Performance: Evidence from Chinese Hydropower Industry

Hydropower, a renewable energy resource, underpins China’s economic and social advancement, gaining prominence amidst the country’s energy structure metamorphosis. Enhancing the performance of hydropower development projects is imperative, with the mechanisms of learning and innovation wielding a substantial impact. The extant literature on how learning and innovation affect hydropower project performance remains nebulous, lacking a systematic model to elucidate these impact mechanisms. This investigation melds theoretical analysis with the idiosyncrasies of hydropower project development, forging a theoretical model to decipher the interplay of learning, innovation, and project performance. Employing a mixed-methods approach, we probe the influence of organizational learning orientation and individual learning on participant capabilities, engineering innovation magnitude, and overall project performance. Path analysis divulges that organizational learning orientation catalyzes individual learning, jointly enhancing engineering innovation and project performance directly, although the effect on each participant’s capability necessitates mediation through the engineering innovation level. This pioneering study establishes the links and influence trajectories between learning, innovation, and project performance, systematically delineating them. It fills a scholarly void in exploring learning and innovation mechanisms within hydropower project development, propounding strategies to augment project efficiency and furnishing pragmatic, constructive insights for better engineering practice outputs.

Strategy Implementation Practices and Performance of National Government Constituency Development Fund Projects in Marsabit County, Kenya

Effective strategy implementation practices are fundamental drivers to organizational project performance. This study seeks to determine the effects of strategy implementation practices on the performance of National Government constituency development projects in Moyale. The specific objectives guiding the study included strategic leadership, organizational culture, employee development and communication on the performance of consistency development projects in Moyale. The study is guided by the resource-based view theory, Leadership theory and Balance Scorecard Model. The study will employ and make use of descriptive design. In this study, the target population will be made up of the household heads and the NG- CDF Committee members who have the mandate of overseeing project performance in Moyale Constituency. According to the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS, 2021), there is a total of 17,777 households in Moyale Constituency. Besides, there are 10 NG-CDF committee members who oversee education and security projects within Moyale Constituency. This study made use of stratified sampling technique since the population has two key strata including NG-CDF Committee members and Household heads in Moyale Constituency. This technique was quite useful since it ensured the presence of the key subgroup within the sample. This study made use of Yamane’s formula to determine the sample size with 95% confidence level. Ten percent of the total sample for the study was considered during piloting. Ten percent was not included in the final research. Content validity was used in testing the validity of the questions within the questionnaire whereas reliability was obtained following a test on Cronbach Alpha. Quantitative data obtained by the researcher were presented in the form of mean averages. Besides, statistical analysis software version 25 was considered achieving data analysis. Analysis of the qualitative data was done through content analysis. This method was helpful in coming up with the study inferences. Presentation of the study findings was in the form of tables. The results highlighted that effective leadership in Moyale Constituency plays a crucial role in guiding operations toward desired objectives, significantly influencing the performance of development activities. The findings underline the pivotal role of strategic leadership in shaping the performance of constituency development projects in Moyale, contingent upon effective strategy implementation and evaluation of leaders' actions. The findings further highlighted a direct correlation between employees' job satisfaction and the performance of development projects in Moyale Constituency. It is recommended by the study that policy makers in Moyale Constituency need to establish guidelines for the training and development of leaders in Moyale Constituency to enhance their strategic leadership skills. Besides, the policy makers should integrate strategic leadership principles into the leadership selection process to ensure that leaders possess the necessary qualities to drive positive change.

Project managers competency on project performance of green toll road development project in Indonesia

The Green Road Construction development program is a program that has the potential to reduce carbon emissions from road construction. Currently, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia through the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing together with the Toll Road Business Entity continues to strive to provide the best service to the community using Toll Roads that are applied to all Toll Roads in Indonesia, especially Green Toll Roads. At the implementation stage, it has not been able to run smoothly because there are several constraining factors such as social and environmental aspects. For this reason, this study aims to find out what factors are needed by a Project Manager who carries out the construction. References are taken from various journals and articles that discuss green toll roads around the world and in Indonesia. This research is a combination of qualitative and quantitative (mixed methods) by distributing questionnaires to several respondents. The results of the factor analysis show that the Project Performance factor (Y) is strongly influenced by the determinant factors namely Knowledge (X1) in terms of Time (X1.3), Cost (X1.4) and Procurement (X1.7). Henceforth, project performance (Y) is also influenced by Knowledge (X1), Skill (X2), and Tools & Techniques (X3). Meanwhile, on the other hand, the Project Performance factor (Y) is also influenced by the Green Toll Road (Z).

Strategy development of contractor with Contractor Full Pre-Finance (CPF) scheme using risk-based approach to increase cost performance of toll road development projects

Strategy development of contractor with Contractor Full Pre-Finance (CPF) scheme using risk-based approach to increase cost performance of toll road development projects

Influence of Monitoring and Evaluation on Road Development Projects Mombasa County, Kenya

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of Monitoring and Evaluation on road development projects in Kenya. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design and mixed method methodology to enable wider comprehension of the problem. The objective of this was to assess the level of stakeholder engagement on the performance of road development projects in Mombasa County, Kenya. The study utilized stakeholder theory mainly to address the shortcoming within project management. The target population was 40 county government officials, 20 National government officials, 60 community representatives and four project managers. A sample size of 124 was selected using the stratified random sampling technique. Theprimary data was collected using structured survey questionnaires to examine the independent and the dependent variables and their relationship to each other. The reliability and validity of the research instruments were tested by carrying out a pilot study. During re-testing the Cronbach Alpha (α) above 0.7 is acceptable for internal consistency. The collected data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The study findings determined that the stakeholder was responsible for knowing what was happening during the project implementation. The study concluded that the road development project, in its entirety, accepted stakeholder involvement in the planning, assessment, and analyzing efficiency and effectiveness of the project.The study recommends that stakeholder mapping is imperative for proper identification and categorization.

Enhancing R&D Performance Management: A Case of R&D Projects in South Korea

This study introduces a comprehensive system designed to monitor and manage the performance of research and development (R&D) projects. The proposed system offers project managers a systematic methodology to enhance the efficiency of R&D performance management. To achieve this, the system categorizes R&D performance indicators based on their feasibility of measurement and the frequency of output generated during R&D activities. The progress rate of each indicator is then represented in terms of observable and latent progress, considering the unique characteristics of each indicator. The calculation methods vary depending on the classification of the indicator. Additionally, a progress priority matrix is developed to aid decision-making by evaluating the current progress and rate of progress increment of the indicators. This matrix enables project managers to prioritize tasks effectively. To assess the validity and usefulness of the proposed system, it is applied to a real case of large-scale R&D projects conducted at a Korean research institute. Interviews with project managers validate that the proposed system surpasses the effectiveness of the legacy system in monitoring R&D progress. Through its comprehensive framework and practical application, this study contributes to the enhancement of R&D project performance monitoring, providing valuable insights for project managers seeking to optimize their R&D management processes.

Sustainability of Cultural Heritage-Related Projects: Use of Socio-Economic Indicators in Latvia

The main objective of the current study was to contribute to the creation of a practically usable set of heritage development project performance indicators and check their usage possibilities in the Latvian context. For this purpose, the authors have studied scientific literature, regulatory acts, international methodologies, as well as 22 EU co-financed projects related to the cultural heritage objects’ development. The developed list of indicators was tested through a sociological survey in all Latvian municipalities, other institutions and organizations. The study results showed that the use of indicators can increase public awareness and support for planned and implemented projects. The possibility of obtaining relevant measurement data (not applicability of the indicators alone) plays a very important role in the use of indicators. In addition, municipalities better accept indicators that are directly related to project results, do not require resource-intensive financial and economic analysis and are not related to long-term socio-economic impact. The study revealed that greater attention on the national scale (both by project implementers and supervisory institutions), should be paid to the acquisition and processing of the necessary data at the municipal level, paying special attention to the impact of implemented projects on well-being of population, environment, economy, finances, social inclusion, local production, education, science, real estate and infrastructure.

Environmental Impact Assessment Process and Performance of Sustainable Development Project in Rwanda

Environmental Impact Assessment Process and Performance of Sustainable Development Project in Rwanda

Community Infrastructure Development and Performance of Nunga Neighbourhood Development Project

The study aimed to assess the community infrastructure development and performance of the Nunga Neighborhood Development Project. Specific objectives of the study were; to assess the effect of mobilization on the performance of the Nunga Neighborhood Development Project, to identify the effect of planning on the performance of the Nunga Neighborhood Development Project, and to evaluate the effect of implementation on the performance of the Nunga Neighborhood Development Project. A descriptive research design was adopted to get results related to the study; the target population and the sample size were 105. Census sampling was applied, and the data sources were primary and secondary. The questionnaire was used to collect primary data, and a documentary review for secondary data. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis using frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation, and inferential statistics using Pearson correlation (r) and multiple linear regression analysis. The presentation of findings was done using tables; the pilot test was performed to ensure the validity and reliability of the instrument used in data collection. After collecting data, the following results were obtained; the findings revealed that mobilizing the community influenced the project's performance at a strong positive correlation of 0.892, while participation of the community in planning influenced the project's performance at a strong positive correlation of 0.950. In addition, the results showed that there is a strong positive correlation between community engagement in implementation and the performance of the project at 0.913 (r=91.3%), which affirmed that the ability of a community to participate in implementation led to the performance of the Nunga Neighborhood Development project. The study concluded that mobilizing the community and engaging the community in planning and implementation highly influence the project's performance. The study recommended project developers and managers sensitize the community to participate in infrastructure development projects, and project managers need to encourage community members to participate in financial contributions as well as in controlling the use of project resources. Keywords: Community Infrastructure, Development, Performance, Nunga Neighbourhood, Development Project &nbsp

Implementing Project Monitoring and Evaluation Plan with Beneficiaries for Improving Performance: Evidence from Tanzania Conditional Cash Transfer

The beneficiaries’ involvement in Monitoring and Evaluation is one of the key drivers for the performance of development projects. The Tanzania Conditional Cash Transfer is a neediness decrease project carried out in all the districts. The motivation behind the study was to lay out the influence of households’ associations in the implementation of Monitoring and Evaluation plan on the performance of the Tanzania Conditional Cash Transfer Project. The study took on a pragmatic paradigm with a blended research design strategy. Yamane formula was used to obtain a sample size of 400 heads of households while eight Village Committees and eight Monitoring Officers were selected by using purposive sampling. Quantitative data was analyzed using Pearson’s correlation and regression models while qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis. The study established a significant influence between households’ involvement in the implementation of Monitoring and Evaluation plan (t= 8.472, p-value =.000) on the performance of the Tanzania Conditional Cash Transfer Project. In this manner, it was evidenced that households’ contribution to Monitoring and Evaluation significantly influenced the performance of the Tanzania Conditional Cash Transfer Project. It was recommended therefore that the Tanzania Conditional Cash Transfer Project Monitoring and Evaluation policy should be reviewed in order to ensure it is people-centered and make it vital for households’ involvement in the Monitoring and Evaluation cycle. The review must define the Monitoring and Evaluation team that is composed of households’ representatives. Further investigations ought to look at the organizational practice of Monitoring and Evaluation and level of use of Monitoring and Evaluation information for further improving performance.

Intra-Company Loans in Foreign Direct Investment and Performance of Real Estate Development Projects in Kenya

Foreign Direct Investment has over the years been a critical player in economic growth of mot countries across the globe. One of the key aspects that have defined the success of FDIs is the intra-company loans, which act as a source of affordable, effective and accessible funding to the FDI projects. In Kenya, FDIs have been instrument in economic growth and development, and one of the industries they have been centred on is the real estate development projects. However, very little is known empirically on how FDIs through intra-company loans have contributed to the success of the sector, hence the motivation of this paper. Descriptive research design was used while the target population was the real estate companies in Westlands, Nairobi County. There are forty-eighty registered real estate companies in this area. The units of observation were the directors, finance officers and investment managers from the forty-eight companies. This made a total of one hundred and forty-four respondents. Purposive sampling method was employed where the company directors, finance officers and investment managers were purposively picked. The data was collected using structured questionnaires and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical analysis techniques. The findings revealed that intra-company loans significantly and positively influenced the performance of real estate development projects in Westlands Sub-County. Government policy was also found to significantly moderate the relationship between intracompany loans and performance of the real estate development projects. The study concluded that through intra-company loans, the real estate development projects performed better. It is therefore recommended that the real estate development companies through their management embrace FDIs through intra-company loans so as to stir the performance of their development projects.

Projects Alignment Strategies and Performance of Rwandan Selected Cooperatives: A Case of Cooperative Development Project

The main purpose of this research was to assess the effect of projects alignment strategies on Rwandan selected cooperatives performance. The study was guided by three specific objectives which were to assess the effect of technology implementation on performance of cooperative development project, to evaluate the impact of organizational requirements on performance of cooperative development project and to examine the relationship between objective determination and performance of cooperative development project in Rwanda. The descriptive research design was used to analyze the collected data through questionnaire and interview guide into descriptive statistics with mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics with Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analysis. The data were collected from 116 respondents who were selected using census method because the target population was manageable and reasonable for this study. The results of the first objective revealed that revealed that technology implementation has r=0.00 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with schedule performance, (r=0.832 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with budget performance, and (r=0.769 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with quality performance which implies that there is a positive and significant relationship between technology implementation and performance of cooperative development project in Rwanda. The results of the second objective revealed that organizational requirement has (r=0.781 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with schedule performance, (r=0.891 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with budget performance, and (r=0.747 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with quality performance implying that there is a positive and significant relationship between organizational requirement and performance of cooperative development project in Rwanda. The results of the third objective revealed that objective determination has (r=0.820 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with schedule performance, (r=0.786 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with budget performance and (r=0.807 and sig=0.00 < 0.01) with quality performance implying that there is a positive and significant relationship between objective determination and performance of cooperative development project in Rwanda. Thus, recommendations were made to government to ensure that reliable and affordable internet and ICT infrastructure are built to ensure that most of the projects have access to internet and other technological advancement, and beneficiaries and stakeholders as well as employees are recommend to participation in providing priorities and accessing the local community before determining the objective of the project and setting up organizational requirement in order to enhance performance which is significant to the whole community. Keywords: Alignment Strategies, Project Performance, Cooperative Development Project, Rwanda 

THE INFLUENCE OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION ON THE PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROJECT AT URBAN WEST REGION ZANZIBAR

The study sought to examine the influence of community participation on the performance of local government authority's development projects in Zanzibar. A positivist research philosophy was used. A quantitative approach was employed and an explanatory design was also used in this study. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 273 sample that were drawn using stratified sampling from 858 populations from the Urban West Region in Zanzibar. Descriptive statistics, correlation and linear regression were used to analysis data. The study found that the independent variable community participation was positive, statistically and significantly related to development project performance in Urban West Region. Based on the findings the study recommends that Local government authorities should develop and implement policies that encourage and support community participation in all stages of development projects

Formula omitted]: A method for synthetic opinions to yield a robust fuzzy expert system

In many domains, decision-making is challenging, as experts are often limited in availability. However, without a sufficient number of expert opinions, the associated solutions would not be robust. Motivated by this, MOSY, a Method for SYnthetic Opinions has been developed to produce a robust Fuzzy Expert System (FES) by specifying Nsr, the number of (synthetic) experts per rule. For every one of these “synthetic experts”, MOSY produces an opinion from a normal distribution characteristic of a human expert. Correspondingly, the FES is used to produce an opinion from an antecedent vector whose elements are sampled from a uniform distribution. Synthetic and human opinion vectors, resulting from all rules and number of experts per rule, are driven to agree through optimization of weights associated with the fuzzy rules. The weight-optimized MOSY was tested against sets of human expert opinions in two distinct domains, namely, an industrial development project (IDP) and passenger car performance (PCP). Results showed that the synthetic and human expert opinions correlated between 91.4% and 98.0% on an average over 5≤Nsr≤250, across five outcomes of the IDP. Likewise, for PCP, respective correlations varied between 85.6% and 90.8% for 10≤Nsr≤150 across the two performance measures. These strong correlations indicate that MOSY is capable of producing synthetic opinions to yield a robust FES where sufficient human experts are not available.•This method, known as MOSY, generates synthetic expert opinions to achieve robustness in an FES.•MOSY was validated against sets of human expert opinions in two distinct domains.•Strong correlations were observed between the synthetic and human expert opinions.

Cross-domain learning for underwater image enhancement

The poor quality of underwater images has become a widely-known cause affecting the performance of the underwater development projects, including mineral exploitation, driving photography, and navigation for autonomous underwater vehicles. In recent years, deep learning-based techniques have achieved remarkable successes in image restoration and enhancement tasks. However, the limited availability of paired training data (underwater images and their corresponding clear images) and the requirement for vivid color correction remain challenging for underwater image enhancement, as almost all learning-based methods require paired data for training. In this study, instead of creating the time-consuming paired data, we explore the unsupervised training strategy. Specifically, we introduce a universal cross-domain GAN-based framework to generate high-quality images to address the dependence on paired training data. To ensure the vivid colorfulness, the color loss is designed to constrain the training process. Also, a feature fusion module (FFM) is proposed to increase the capacity of the whole model as well as the dual discriminator channel adopted in the architecture. Extensive quantitative and perceptual experiments show that our approach overcomes the limitation of paired data and obtains superior performance over the state-of-the-art on several underwater benchmarks in terms of both accuracy and model deployment.