The effects of millennium development initiatives on people’s socio economic development: a case of Sauri millennium village in Siaya County, Kenya

Abstract

The key challenge facing many developing countries is to reduce poverty and achieve sustained economic growth and development. Poverty is multidimensional as it includes inadequacies of income and deprivation of basic needs and rights, lack of access to productive assets as well as social infrastructure and market. The question of poverty has led to several intervention programmes by the government and development agencies to reduce poverty. Despite these efforts the poverty rates have continued to increase day by day. The introduction of millennium villages to accelerate development has been embraced due to its ambitious eight millennium development goals. It is assumed that the Sauri millennium village project will trigger desired development. However this has not been the case since millennium development goals were not ambitious enough going little beyond 2015 and the eight goals were not prioritized like reduction of hunger may leverage achievement of health and education targets. On the other hand the socioeconomic development in the country seems to be growing by day. This study was conceived out of increasing rate of poverty in Kenya due to poor development strategies. This study intends to establish the effects of millennium development initiatives on people’s socio-economic development in Kenya using a case of Sauri millennium village. The study objectives were: to identify strategies used by millennium villages to enhance development, assess the effects of millennium villages on people’s socio-economic development, establish challenges faced by millennium villages in promoting people’s socio-economic development and to explore ways of enhancing millennium villages to improve people’s socioeconomic development. Descriptive methods were employed in the study. The main data collection instruments used were questionnaires, interview schedule and document analysis. The target population was 300 who composed of project managers, employees and households of Sauri millennium village in Kenya. The sample size of 90 was drawn to represent the target population because it was 30% of the selected population. The research used stratified sampling and simple random sampling to select sample size. Data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The data was presented in form of frequency distribution tables, graphs and pie charts. The anticipated benefits from the study included: the current development strategies used in development, significance of millennium development initiatives, the challenges faced while undertaking development and the best ways of strengthening millennium villages to improve people’s socioeconomic development. Based on the findings the study concluded that the strategies used by the millennium village included community involvement in leadership and planning, use of appropriate science based technology and local knowledge, capacity building, adequate funding, provision of agricultural subsidies, gender mainstreaming and partnering with private sector, national and international development partners. The effects of millennium village on people’s socioeconomic development included: reduction of absolute poverty and hunger, improvement of primary school enrollment, reduction of child mortality, improvement in maternal health, promotion of gender equality, reduction of spread of malaria and HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability and partnering with other local and global development agencies. The challenges facing millennium village included: inadequate funding, too much community expectations, government bureaucracy, corruption and lack of transparency. The ways of enhancing millennium village to improve people’s socioeconomic development included: adequate funding, use of scientific validated interventions, use of science based technology, inclusion of all stakeholders, accountability, transparency and visionary leadership. The targeted beneficiaries of the findings included: institutions, policy makers, regional development authorities, development agencies, county and central government