Dr. Anne Wairimu Ndiritu

Citation:

Rogito DO, Maitho T, Nderitu A. "Sustainability of Food Security Irrigation Projects by Taking Corrective Action after Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation in Kitui County, Kenya. International journal of Innovative Research and Development. ISSN 2278-0211 (Online).". 2021.

Abstract:

Abstract:
Food supply is less than food demand in Kitui County as population keeps increasing. This lack of food leads to
malnutrition, poor health and even death to human beings and animals both domestic and wild. Agriculture is the key
food source in Kitui County in the republic of Kenya. Occasionally residents buy food quantities from neighboring Arid
and semi-arid areas counties which is not a reliable source because they face similar challenge. Many interventions to
improve food security has been put in place and one such is irrigation by the local county and National government
initiated through National irrigation Board but sustainability of these projects is a great concern in Kitui County.
Despite the irrigation projects setup still biting is food insufficiency which persists. One approach to improve
sustainability of irrigation projects is carrying out participatory monitoring and evaluation and then taking
corrective action which could also lead to ownership and then improved sustainability. This was the objective of the
study which was to assess if taking corrective action after Participatory Monitoring and evaluation (PME)influence
project sustainability. The study used descriptive survey and correlation designs in order to collect data from 316
respondents who were selected using stratification, judgmental and purposeful with strict randomization methods.
Questionnaires were administered and interviews were conducted on selected respondents on appointed dates. Data
was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social scientist (SPSS) version 25.0in order to get descriptive statistics also
correlation coefficients were got in order to get association and degree of strength. Testing of hypothesis was done
using linear regression. The study findings show thata big percentage (56.3%) of the respondents were aged between
31 to 40years.Majority of the respondents were females and their highest-level of education was up to primary school.
The respondents agreed that PME data collection and taking corrective action were not done. Taking corrective
action had a weak influence on sustainability with a correlation coefficient (r)of 0.33 which only explains 10.9% of
project sustainability. It’s recommended that farmers should be trained more through seminars and vocational
institutions in order to empower them with skills. Also, farmers should be encouraged to participate in irrigation
projects as they can have a sense of ownership. Infrastructure should be improved in order to access markets and a PM
& Eunit should be set up in irrigation projects in order to spear data collection and analysis and guide projects
towards sustainability. This is significant because it will improve sustainability and thus more food supply reducing
malnutrition rates and death among people and animals.
Keywords: Participatory monitoring and evaluation, Food security, taking corrective action, irrigation,
Sustainability, Projects, management