DETERMINANTS OF PROJECTS IMPLEMENTATION PERFORMANCE IN GEDEO ZONE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PRIVATE INVESTMENT

Economic and political reforms have been introduced in Ethiopia and these have boosted private<br> investment over the last three decades. The reforms have brought measurable improvements, but<br> the progress of private investment development has remained slow. Hence, this study was<br> conducted with the main objective of identifying the determinants of private project<br> implementation performance in Gedeo Zone. The researcher collected data from investors by<br> structured questionnaires from 178 investors using stratified sampling technique. The researcher<br> employed both an explanatory and descriptive research approach. Both qualitative and<br> quantitative methods of data analysis techniques have employed using spss version 20. To<br> conduct analysis of the data researcher used descriptive and logit model. Major challenges faced<br> in Gedeo zone administration was shortage of access to road, electricity in rural areas of Gedeo<br> Zone, shortage of finance, that is basically concerned with the higher need of banks for<br> collateral requirements to grant investment loans and the incapacity of private investors to meet<br> financial institutions' collateral requirements, sectorial ignorance of financial institutions in<br> their credit policy, basically in agriculture. The research found that business experience, and<br> training and project preparations deficiency of infrastructure facilities and access to credit<br> determine private investment projects implementation performance in Gedeo zone. Based on the<br> findings of the study, the government should revise credit access, procedures, and governance,<br> infrastructural facilities, like power supply, water and road access.