Efficacy of Monitoring and Evaluation Function in Achieving Project Success in Kenya: A Survey of County Government’s Projects

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine the efficacy of monitoring and evaluation in achieving project success in Kenya. The victory of project management is usually gauged by the project success. Project success is achieved as a result of various contributing factors. One of the major factors leading to project success is monitoring and evaluation. This study therefore examined the efficiency of monitoring and evaluation function and its effect in achieving project success. This was done by assessing whether various attributes monitoring and evaluation such as; strength of monitoring, monitoring approach adopted, political influence and project lifecycle stage affects project success. Each of these attributes was regressed against the project success. The study found out that all the monitoring and evaluation attributes assessed had some impact in achieving the Project success. This study concluded that a number of projects that fail were as a result of weak a monitoring and evaluation function which was partly contributed by lack of management support. The study contributed new knowledge in that it established that projects may be unsuccessful despite having monitoring and evaluation function due to the weakness of M&E, lack of management support on the project functions, and political interference especially in Africa and developing countries.

Keywords: Monitoring and Evaluation, Project Success, Kenya, County Governments.