What is the relationship between monitoring and performance of Church of Uganda Projects in Namirembe Diocese?

Abstract

Purpose: It was prudent that the Church of Uganda strategic plan 2025 was incorporated with a monitoring strategy intended to progressively track program performance and analyze activity implementation and foresee any difficulties so as to take timely corrective action. This paper examined the relationship between monitoring and performance of Church of Uganda Projects in Namirembe Diocese.
 Methodology: A Cross sectional survey design was used on a study population of 117 respondents. 87 respondents filled the Survey questionnaires whose responses were analysed by using correlational and regression analysis by using PSPP software Version 1.2.0-g0fb4db. Key Informant interviews and an FGD were carried out and responses were analysed using content analysis and results presented as text.
 Findings: Descriptive findings highlighted that monitoring to some extent improves project performance (mean 3.12), This was further supported by the qualitative findings. Furthermore, inferential statistics confirmed that Monitoring had a significant positive relationship with Project performance (β=0.25, p= 0.014<0.05).
 Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: In conclusion, this paper established that monitoring influences project performance. The weaknesses included; Diversion of funds from the intended projects, No assigned personels to directly monitor projects, Lack of monitoring skills and knowledge, Lack of transparency in the reports, inadequate salaries of the monitoring staff, conflict of interest in the businesses that are run on Church land. Therefore, to improve upon the performance of Church of Uganda projects, it is important to strengthen the monitoring mechanisms; financial monitoring, process monitoring and outcome monitoring. The non-existent monitoring framework will be developed with informed decisions from the study.