Beyond Church Precincts Empowering Communities for Self Governance and Development

Decentralization has been hailed as one of the key ingredients of development and good governance world over. It gives the people the opportunity to participate in the management of public resources. This could be one of the reasons why the Kenyan government thought it necessary to adopt the concept by developing various decentralized funds to cascade development down to the grassroots. In 2003 an Act of Parliament No 11 led to the establishment of CDF (Constituency Development Fund) which required that 2.5% of government ordinary revenue collected every financial year is administered through CDF.3/4 of this amount is equitably divided between the 210 constituencies whereas a ¼ divided based on poverty index of a constituency hence constituencies with high poverty index get a bigger allocation.

Since then, CDF has led to tremendous development at the grassroots, construction of schools, health facilities, water projects are among development projects initiated as a result of CDF. The fund has further helped in scaling down levels of illiteracy through provision of bursaries to students unable to raise school fees. This notwithstanding, the management of CDF funds has had its fare share of challenges among them being minimal or lack of community participation in the running of the funds, identification of projects, implementation and even monitoring of the same. There’s a huge gap existing between communities (the right holders) and the duty bearers (those charged to oversee the funds).Most people are afraid of approaching their leaders e.g. MPs to enquire about the running or utilization of the funds hence lack of accountability.

A CDF funded school construction project in
 progress,Changamwe
constituency (file photo)

It’s on this premise that National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) has initiated a programme dubbed ” empowering communities for self governance and development” seeking to improve the capacity of local communities to participate in project design, implementation and demand for transparency and accountability in utilization of decentralized funds CDF included. The programme is targeting 14 constituencies in Coast region. The organization has trained Community Accountability Facilitators to raise awareness among constituents on decentralized funds and further helping them understand their roles; demanding for accountability, involvement in project identification and implementation and monitoring. The organization has further trained Social Auditors to peruse through project files available at CDF offices and visiting projects to verify what’s on the records against the actual. The auditors document their findings; call for community  forums which brings together CDF officials and other stakeholders and present their findings. This provides a platform for right holders to engage the duty bearers.

Bunge La Mwananchi Changamwe constituency in session

Since the inception of this programme mid 2010 a lot has been realized. Communities have been empowered and several indicators can attest to this. For instance constituents in Changamwe and Kinango constituencies with the help of the trained community accountability facilitators and social auditors have formed a platform popularly known as “Bunge La Mwananchi” where people gather to discuss pertinent issues affecting them and especially in relation to decentralized funds.

This platform has created interaction between the community and the duty bearers. Communities are now able to confront management committees and their area MPs to demand for accountability. It’s envisaged that once communities are empowered they will demand, of course using the right channels, for what is rightfully theirs and eventually the government of the day will be put on its toes to provide quality services to its citizenry.