Citizens’ Participation in development: A Case of constituency development fund (Cdf) In Kanduyi constituency of Bungoma County, Kenya

Abstract

This paper focuses on citizens’ participation in Constituency Development Fund (CDF) projects in Kenya and is based on a study that was carried out in Kanduyi constituency of Bungoma County. CDF was established in Kenya by an act of parliament in 2003 and it is a strategy that channels resources to community projects proposed by community members. The strategy is supposed to increase citizens’ involvement in the provision of developmental services and in so doing, empowering them to manage their livelihoods. The paper examines citizens’ participation in the identification, selection and prioritization, planning and implementation of CDF projects. A descriptive survey design was used with 245 respondents taking part in the study. The findings indicated that citizens’ involvement in CDF projects was low and the major cause of this low participation was lack of knowledge and information on how CDF projects are identified, selected and prioritized before funding. The paper further discusses the benefits and limitations of citizens’ participation in the development agenda. The recommendations were that for CDF to be all inclusive, more funds need to be allocated towards awareness and information dissemination to create stronger structures that will increase citizens’ awareness about the procedures in the fund. Secondly, there is need to expand both the Location Development Committees (LDC) and Project Committee (PC) membership so as to cater for more inclusive.