The Influence of Project Monitoring and Evaluation on Effective Utilization of CDF Funds in BaringoCentral, Baringo County

The study sought to determine the influence of project monitoring and evaluation on effective utilization of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Baringo Central Constituency, Baringo County in Kenya. The target population of 100 projects funded by CDF was used under different sectors. Stratified simple random sampling method was used to select 100 respondents drawn from Baringo Central constituency. Data was collected by use of questionnaires and was later analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis tools. According to the study findings there was a high positive correlation between Monitoring and Evaluation and effective utilization of CDF funds, at 0.01 confidence level with a Pearson correlation of 0.985, p-value less than 0.01 (0.002). This implies that the more monitoring and evaluation of CDF projects the more effective and efficient is the utilization of the funds. The study recommended that to ensure effective utilization of CDF, monitoring and evaluation should be done more frequently and political inferences should not avoided in any CDF projects hence a need for an independent body to carry out monitoring and evaluation of the constituency CDF projects. In addition the CDF committee should not be headed by political leaders but qualified project managers who are rigorously vetted.