Effectiveness of exit strategies on sustainability of development projects in Rwanda

Abstract

This research investigated the effectiveness of exit strategies implementation on the sustainability of development projects supported by USAID in Rwanda. It discusses deeply the phases involved in the implementation of effective exit strategies and indicators of projects sustainability. Many implementations of exit strategies have been successful, while others have failed to deliver the sustainability of the project. This study was established the relationship between effective exit strategy implementation and the sustainability of development project. In research methodology the researcher used both qualitative approaches by interpreting the finding with his own words and quantitative by using instruments on specific number of respondents. It used case study approach whereby selected projects supported by USAID in Rwanda were considered as a case study. The questionnaires and unguided interview was used to collect primary data. SPSS was used to analyze the processed data using model of standard deviation, mean and correlation. Table 4.4 illustrates that the 75.0% of respondents confirmed that USAID plans for exit from the beginning, they develop partnership and local linkages as confirmed by 88.2% of respondents, build local organizational and human capacities as 86.8% respondents confirmed it, mobilizing the local and external resources as more than 81.6% respondents confirmed it, creating or strengthening of service delivery mechanisms as confirmed by 81.6% respondents, establishing the assurance of beneficiary access to services as more than 85.5% respondents confirmed it, and Improving beneficiary demand for and use of services and adoption of behaviors promoted by the project as confirmed by 84.2% respondents in USAID. Table 4.5 illustrates that perceptions of respondents on the sustainability of agricultural projects in Rwanda financed by USAID. They said that sustainability of agricultural projects indicated by a sustainable source of resources confirmed by 96.1% of respondents, a sustainable technical and managerial capacity confirmed by 81.6% respondents, a sustainable motivation (of beneficiaries and service providers) confirmed by 88.2% respondents, and sustainable outcome and output confirmed by 86.8% respondents in USAID Rwanda. From the table 4.9, P-value equals to 0.000 which is less than Alpha (0.05). This is an indicator of the relationship between exit strategies and sustainability of development projects in USAID. The level of relationship of r2: .812 (81.2%) located in interval statistic between 0.7 categorized as High Correlation. Key Words: Exit strategy, project sustainability.