Project Management Practices And Performance Of Agricultural Cooperatives. The Case Of Cotumu Cooperative In Gakenke District, Rwanda

Rwanda"s economy is basically dependent on the performance of agriculture which contributes highly in the development of other sectors. However, the performance of many agricultural projects in Rwanda is still being low level in the sense that some projects remain hindered while others get accomplished late with low incomes. Indicate that a project performance is prejudiced by many management practices jointly then many studies fail to provide a holistic assessment of all the project management practices jointly that influence performance agricultural projects. This study, therefore, sought to investigate project management practices and performance of agricultural cooperative. The specific objectives of the study were; To explore the relationship between monitoring and evaluation and performance of agricultural cooperative in Gakenke district, To examine the relationship between the influence of stakeholders and performance of agricultural cooperative in Gakenke District and to analysis the relationship between project leadership experience and performance and agricultural cooperative in Gakenke District.. The study was based on five theories which included the theory of constrains, management theory of project management, resource based theory. The study used descriptive research designs. It targeted 1122 of COTUMU. The study used Random sampling to COTUMU and Yamane method was used to select 295 respondents. Primary data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Interviews were also conducted on 10 staff members. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation were used to describe the characteristics of the variables whereas multiple correlation model was used to establish the relationships between the variables. All the analysis was done using SPSS version 22. Qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis. The results showed that all the variables, monitoring and evaluation, influence of stakeholders and project leadership experience were significant performance of agricultural cooperatives. The study recommended that in order to have the desired project performance the government should ensure that there is well outlined planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and communication methods. The study also recommended that 1) Government and donors should improve the services to support in providing continuous professional development to the famers in their society based institutions for good production, they must augment contact time with the cooperatives members and put them through baseline survey and situation of merchandise marketing by making advertisement apart from field trips and providing professional development. This will alarm farmers and expose them to learning for better cooperative learning, Key words: Cooperatives, COTUMU, monitoring, project management practices and stakeholders.