Financial Management, Project Monitoring and Evaluation and Sustainability of Youth Income Generating Projects in Kiambu County, Kenya

For Kenya to change from middle to a developed economy, sustainable income generating projects have to be embraced. Sustainability of income generating projects has attracted support from various players in terms of educating community on techniques for financial management and tools for project monitoring and evaluation. However, majority of the income generating projects have been collapsing two years after implementation and others to not produce the expected impact to the youth, hence a need to carry out a study to determine the influence of financial management and monitoring and evaluation on project sustainability. The study was based on contingency theory to inform the relationship which exist in proper management of the projects in terms of financial and monitoring and evaluation to ensure sustainable operations. Since the population was small, all the forty-three active youth income generating projects operating in Kiambu County were targeted. For validity and reliability five youth income generating projects in Murang’a County were used for pilot testing. The questionnaire which was sent via emails to the respondents and which contained semi-structured questions were used to collect primary data. Data were normally distributed with Shapiro-Wilk test which gave significant values greater than 0.5 and VIF of less than 10 indicated lack of multicollinearity. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics mainly mean and standard deviation and the relationship was determined using multiple regression model. The study will be of beneficial to youth income generating groups’ leaders, County government funding departments and donors by enhancing knowledge on how to bridge the gaps related to financial management and monitoring and evaluation. The study found that financial management and Monitoring and evaluation have a positive effect on the sustainability of youth income generating projects in Kiambu County. The study recommended that the National and County Government agencies involved in youth empowerment should provide the youth groups with comprehensive, quality and convenient training on financial management and on project monitoring and evaluation of projects to ensure sustainable income generating projects. Frequency of monitoring and evaluation should be enhanced so as to seek feedback and arrest any problem which may lead to project failure.