CHALLENGES HINDERING SUSTAINABILITY OF COMMUNITY WATER PANS PROJECTS IN KENYA; A CASE OF KITUI COUNTY

¹NYANGARESI Onchaga Wycliffe & ²KIARIE, David
Senior Lecturer, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya
¹M.Sc. Scholar Project Management,
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
²Lecturer, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
Email of corresponding author: onchaga@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
In spite of the huge efforts and investments in the installation of community water pans infrastructure in the Kenya’s ASALs to assist the communities to alleviate the problem of water scarcity, the sustainability of these projects is the major problem as they are falling out of use at an alarming rate. The main purpose this study was to explore the underlying constraints hindering sustainability of community water pans projects so as to make an appropriate recommendation for enhancing sustainability of these projects in Kenya..The study used descriptive survey research design. The study sample comprised of 45 water pans in five constituencies of Kitui County. Quantitative data was processed and analyzed by use of descriptive (frequencies, mean, standard deviations and percentages) and inferential statistics from statistical tools (SPSS version 20 and Excel).The study findings showed that environmental factors and technical challenges affected most the sustainability of community water pans projects as per the correlation and regression analysis which showed they had an inverse relationship. This implies that they influenced sustainability of community water pans projects negatively unlike the project management skills and government policy which had a positive significant relationship. Based on these findings, the study recommends that having an integrated environmental watershed management by the communities, involvement of community in the project phases to create sense of ownership, facilitating provision of project management and technical trainings to impart skills to personnel involved in the implementation and management of the projects to enhance sustainability of community water pans projects.
Key Words: community water pans, sustainability, environmental factors, technical challenges