Influence of Stakeholder Engagement on Performance of Climate Adaptability Projects by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Kenya

Climate change poses a major threat to agriculture, livelihoods, and socio-economic development in East Africa, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions.To address this, IGAD has implemented climate adaptability projects in Kenya; however, challenges such as weak political support, limited institutional capacity, inadequate stakeholder engagement, and poor resource mobilization have constrained performance.This study examined the influence of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) drivers-political support, institutional capacity, stakeholder engagement, and resource mobilization-on the performance of IGAD's climate adaptability projects in Kenya, grounded in Stakeholder and Institutional Theories.A convergent parallel mixed-method design was employed, targeting 757 respondents across nine projects.The sample comprised 263 staff and 12 key informants from partner organizations, with data collected using structured questionnaires and interviews.Analysis was conducted through SPSS v30.0 for quantitative data and thematic methods for qualitative data.Results revealed that the four M&E drivers collectively explained 78.3% of the variance in project performance (R = 0.783), with institutional capacity as the strongest predictor.Introducing organizational coordination improved the model to R = 0.796.The study concludes that all four drivers significantly influence performance and recommends strengthening political support, institutional capacity, stakeholder engagement, and resource allocation to enhance climate adaptability project outcomes.