The Impact of Community Members Engagement in Project Implementation and Success in Rwanda; A Case Study of Ejo Heza Project

Community engagement in the development projects has been applied in developing countries over the last two decades using a variety of approaches. Public participation in the planning and management of developmental projects is crucial to their lasting success. However, in some projects, communities have had little say in the whole process of project cycle from the assessment up to evaluation. Additionally, the success of the Ejo heza Project could not be possible unless Global communities Rwanda plays a significant role of engaging beneficiaries in the whole process. General objective is to assess the impact of community engagement on the project success, a case study of Ejo heza Project. The study used a descriptive research design. This research design is used to describe what is in existence in respect to conditions or variables that are found in a given situation. The total population on this study was 75 household members. Questionnaire and interview was used as data collection instruments. Beneficiaries are engaged, Community Engagement into project planning and project planning to evaluation contribute to the project implementation and success where (R2=0.953). ANOVA results further show explains project sustainability. The sig value (0.000) less than the level significance (0.05). The study concludes that the beneficiaries were more engaged into mid-term evaluation and project visibility through idea sharing with other community members and local leaders compared to how they were engaged into design and implementation stages of the project. this study recommends the project staff and Global communities Rwanda to come up with other methods or strategies to engage the beneficiaries in the whole project phases equally in order to avoid bias among project beneficiaries.