Balance Scorecard’s Financial Focus and its implication on the Implementation of Youth-Based Donor-Funded Projects in Homabay County, Kenya

Abstract

Youth-based organizations are expected to engage the youth and tap into their energy and synergies while exploiting development opportunities that abound in most rural areas globally and more so in Africa. However, a myriad of challenges, including strategy misfit, poor organizational capacity, weak monitoring and evaluation framework, uncoordinated and ill-focused community participation, have, to some extent, hampered efforts to effectively and strategically implement development projects. Despite different donors having stepped in to support projects among the youths, very low levels of success have been realized. If left unaddressed, this situation would likely become a significant impediment towards the achievement of Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the strides towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), considering that the youth constitute a significant pillar of the human capital to drive these aspirations. It remains imperative, therefore, for governments, CBOs and donor agencies to apply appropriate strategic models that would guarantee sustainable project management. The purpose of this research, therefore, was to investigate the influence of Balance Scorecard’s (BSC) Financial Focus, as a strategic model, on the implementation of youth-based donor-funded projects in Homabay County, Kenya. The research was anchored on Dynamic Capabilities and Big Push theories. The study adopted a correlational research design with a study population of 471 managers of the registered youth groups implementing various donor-funded projects in Homabay County, Kenya. Data was collected from a sample of 216 youth group managers spread across the eight Sub-Counties of Homabay County using a self-administered questionnaire; and was analyzed using multiple regression, computed using IBM SPSS version 29. The study found that BSC’s financial focus had significant positive influence on the implementation of youth-based donor-funded projects in Homabay County. The findings underscored the significant role that organization’s financial focus play in enhancing the successful implementation of donor-funded projects among the youth groups. The study recommended that the youth groups should continuously and consistently work towards improving the building blocks of their financial focus, to improve the success rates while implementing donor-funded projects