Abstract:
County government projects have been a challenge in Kenya although they play a
significant role in promoting social services and economic development. The National
Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Programme (NARIGP) has a low percentage
of completed projects with many abandoned due to poor project management practices.
The study was designed to assess the influence of project management practices on the
performance of NARIGP in Kenya. Specifically, this study examined the effect of
stakeholder participation, project planning, project resource mobilization, and project
monitoring on the project performance of NARIGP while evaluating the moderating
role of Project Management Information System (PMIS). An explanatory research
design was used to carry out the study covering a stratified sample of 146 respondents
selected from a target population of 229. Data was for the study collected through semi
structured questionnaires that were administered using Google forms. Descriptive and
inferential statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data after coding and entering
them in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 27). Additionally, the
qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The study established that stakeholder
participation, project planning, project resource mobilization, and project monitoring
significantly influenced project performance. The study also established that PMIS
significantly moderated the relationship between project management practices and
project performance except for project planning. The study concluded that effective
project management practices had a positive effect on the performance of NARIGP.
The study recommended that county governments should invest more in stakeholder
participation, project planning, project monitoring, and use PMIS to increase the
efficiency of project resource mobilization and overall performance of the NARIGP
projects.
