ABSTRACT

Women’s social, political and economic empowerment is a prerequisite for sustainable improvement and seasoned terrible growth. Accomplishing women’s economic empowerment calls for sound public regulations, a holistic method and lengthy-time period dedication and gender-specific views have to be incorporated on the layout level of policy and programming. Accordingly, this study was designed to investigate the influence of government and program implementation bodies’ policies on the performance of women’s empowerment projects in Dagoretti area, Nairobi County, Kenya. To achieve this, the following specific objectives were utilized; to examine distribution of resources policies, decision making policies, monitoring and evaluation policies and leadership and coordination policies on the performance of women empowerment projects in Dagoretti area. the research design was descriptive research design. The study involved interviewing of key actors involved in women’s empowerment programs (particularly in the community based organizations (CBOS). The target population comprised of 33 women groups in Dagoretti Area, 20 Chair persons of Program Implementing Bodies and 4 county officials dealing with Youth and Women affairs. Simple random sampling was used to select 10 women groups, 4 county officials. Purposive sampling was used to select 7 officials from Program Implementing Bodies. Data was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire which was administered to the county official. Focus group discussion guides were carried out on women who were selected randomly during their meetings. Data collected was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively through the help of SPSS computer software and presented through themes percentages, frequencies, tables and bar graphs. Findings indicated that resources were distributed fairly as shown by majority of the respondents however a few resources such as economic resources were poorly distributed. Majority of the respondents indicated that decision making has done very little to empower women due to noninvolvement of women at the local, county or national level. Majority of the women groups did their own monitoring and evaluation. The findings further indicated that there were few offices for leadership and coordination 35.5 % therefore coordinating activities related to women groups was a challenge. Based on the findings of the study the study concludes that; resources were distributed within Dagoretti though they did not commensurate to what other women groups nationally were getting therefore raising issues of inequitable access to resources. Women participation in decision making regarding their projects was weak. Many projects were neither monitored nor evaluated thus low productivity. The study recommends that feasibility studies and needs assessment to be done before disbursing resources. Decision making committees to be established at ward/estate/village level and to have women representatives. Women to be sensitized on M&E through Seminars and workshops. Satellite offices should be established to ease coordination