The impacts of participatory budgeting process on resource allocation: the case of Kiambu County Government, Kenya

Abstract

The Local Authority Service Delivery Action Plan (LASDAP) and Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) have been the main vehicles of community participation at the local level. A major weakness in the CDF Act has been the lack of clear mechanisms for the community to participate in decision making. Whereas these mechanisms exist under the very elaborate LASDAP framework revised in 2009, empirical studies have established that there exists a gap between policy and practice. With the adoption of Kenya Constitution (2010) local authorities have been replaced by Counties and the Constitution further establishes concept of public participation in the County budget process. This requirement is further reinforced by the Public Financial management Act, 2012. Together, the two documents provide for civic participation in public financial affairs, however both documents are rather vague on the process of public participation thus entrusting counties to institutionalize process of public participation in the budget process. Given the previous failures of CDF and LASDAP to inform public participation at local level, this study therefore aims at assessing; the environmental design features, processes and mechanisms of participatory budgeting process in Kiambu County. The environmental design features considered in this study will include structure and form of government and population heterogeneity. Process features will entail timing of participation, type of budget allocation and gathering of input from citizen. In addition assessment of mechanisms will entail assessing various methodology of participation including voting and consensus building. The study further aims at developing predictive model of PB. The study will adopt a case study design and incorporate method of expert evaluation to assess the impacts of participatory budgeting on resource allocation. Data will be collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews and will be analyzed through use of both qualitative and quantitative methods. Finally the study will estimate a logistic regression model to predict presence ofPB.