Description
Influence of External Stakeholder Participation on the Sustainability of Fairtrade Premium Funded Projects in Kenya
ABSTRACT
Name: Margaret Cheptoo Siele
Institutional Affiliation: Jomo Kenyatta University
Email Address: msielec@yahoo.com
Phone Number: 0723407650
Theme: Sub-Theme 2; Issue- Development partners and project Sustainability
The Development partners are institutions or organizations that support the project with the necessary resources required including financial support. Stakeholders can be broadly classified as internal or external, each playing a unique role in defining project sustainability. Despite billions of dollars spent in community projects in Africa, the sustainability of the projects remains an area of concern.Fairtrade, has been in place for over 15 years, supporting projects in flower farms in Kenya. The working hypothesis in the study postulates that there exist a positive relationship between project sustainability and external stakeholder participation.The research sought to determine the influence of external development partners, recipient community and government participation on the sustainability of Fairtrade Premium funded projects in Kenya. A descriptive research design was used. The study targeted 225 respondents comprising Sub county officers in charge of health and education projects, Fairtrade liaison officer, Fairtrade Premium Committee (FPC) project heads, top management representative and community opinion leaders in each of the 38 Fairtrade certified flower farms in Kenya. Questionnaires were used as the main data collection instrument. Descriptive statistics mainly frequency distribution were used for data presentation. Both Correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used to test the relationship between the variables. Statistical Package for Social Science version 24 was used as the data analysis software. The study found that participation of development partners, government and recipient community has a positive influence on the sustainability of Fairtrade premium funded projects in Kenya. The study concludes that external stakeholder participation plays a significant role in the sustainability of Fairtrade premium funded projects.
Key Words
Development partner, sustainability, stakeholders, participation
