Influence of Interventions of Non-governmental Organisations on Farmers' Socio-economic Development in Soy Sub County, Kenya

Abstract

NGOs have taken a leading role in the development of Kenya. Several NGOs with both local and international funding have been in the forefront in fighting poverty, and ignorance among farmers. Despite all these significant efforts made by NGOs in Kenya, no much research has been carried out to establish the effects of interventions by NGO on social economic development. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of Self-reliance assistance on socio economic development in Soy Sub County, Kenya. The study was based on Social Exchange Theory developed by George C. Homans  in between 1910–1989.a s the main theory. The study adopted a cross sectional research design. The target population for this study was 1,580 registered farmers with a sample size of 158 respondents based on Mugenda and Mugenda (2003), a sample size of 10% of the total population is considered adequate. Simple random sampling was used to select the respondents. Primary data was collected in the study for analysis. The study relied on a structured questionnaire as the main tool for data collection. The data obtained from the study was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. In descriptive statistics the study used frequencies, mean and standard deviation while in inferential statistics the study Anova and Pearson moment correlation. The findings indicated that self-reliance assistance r=0.896 and the p-value is .000 had positive high correlation to farmers' socio-economic development in Soy Sub County, therefore it was concluded that self-reliance assistance positively and significantly influence farmers' socio-economic development in Soy Sub County. The study recommended that Government, private sector and NGOs should collaborate to establish a mechanism for a better and efficient approach to providing skilled capacity, need to adopt prudent resource management and develop organization culture that prudently utilizes resources for the optimum good of the society and the NGOs can train community members for services extension purposes. The trained members can be used to reach the other community members who may not have the benefit of accessing the offices and any other important information.