ABSTRACT
Incidents of poor performance of community projects have been documented by various research studies. Many projects encounter delays in implementation, poor quality of projects, time and cost overruns that affect the overall achievement of project objectives (Ramathan et al., 2012). The major problem being that introduction of technology has not been embraced effectively in monitoring and evaluating of project performance, to enable reporting with evidence, despite the much potential that GIS has in improving M&E activities like; sharing information more effectively, strengthening randomised trials, geo-locations mapping, social monitoring and big data analysis. This study therefore sought to determine the effect of Geographical Information Systems integration in Monitoring and Evaluation, and how it influences the performance of community development projects at World Vision Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine the influence of Geographical Information Systems’ progress tracking, data integration, data sharing and data management on performance of Community development projects at World Vision Kenya. The research design was descriptive, targeting a total population of 183 employees working for World Vision Kenya with a sample size of 125 respondents. Data collection was done by use of online selfadministered questionnaires and quantitative data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics on Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive analysis incorporated frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis and results presented in tables and charts. Results showed that Geographical Information Systems (GIS) progress tracking had a positive correlation and significantly influenced performance of community development projects. GIS data integration had a positive correlation with performance of community development projects and significantly affected the performance of community development projects. GIS information sharing had a positive correlation and significantly influenced performance of community development projects. GIS data sharing positively and significantly influenced performance of community development projects and GIS data management also positively and significantly influenced performance of community development projects. The study aimed at benefiting project managers in tracking progress of community development projects by use of GIS, provide World Vision staff with the skills to monitor project progress and performance trough GIS, help donors in accessing data in online portals powered by GIS, and support national and county governments in strengthening their monitoring and evaluation systems for tracking performance of government infrastructural projects. Lastly this study would benefit future academicians and researchers by providing areas for further study, and contribute to the pool of studies in the field of GIS influence on performance of community projects. The study recommended that GIS should be factored in project design with emphasis on GIS in progress tracking to ensure good performance of projects, there was need to decentralize GIS to local level planning and implementation of community and government projects along with the right skill set to harness the power of GIS in project implementation. As well, academic institutions needed to package basic GIS data management skills in all community development/project management courses, to enable learners collect, analyse and interpret GIS data, for proper decision making.