To organise and amplify 10,000 Embu County citizens' voices to come up with development priorities in their communities and advocate for their inclusion in county budgets. Through voice- active citizen participation; vote - increased citizen authority; social justice - reallocation of resources and oversight - increased transparency Embu County citizens will be able to decide what and how their taxes are spent; a sustainable model as it focuses on proper use of locally available resources.
Kenya has structures and laws that allow citizen participation in all aspects of governance including in budgeting processes. However, most citizens still lack adequate information on how to fully participate. In addition, marginalised people have no or limited avenues to voice their concerns thus weakening transparency and accountability mechanisms on how public funds are utilised. This situation has led to ineffective, inefficient and unequal resource distribution and use at the county level.
The project will train Embu community members on the budget cycle, citizen rights in relation to participation, devolved functions and on various advocacy processes at the county level. This will enable them to identify and set their development priorities, engage with duty bearers and advocate for their priorities to be included in county budgets. The project will also train citizens on how to monitor and evaluate the implementation of their set priorities through citizen-led social audits.
The expected long-term impact is improved lives of more than 500,000 citizens of Embu as a result of county officials listening and responding to their voices through prioritising development initiatives such as constructing and equipping health centres, education facilities, water and other infrastructural projects as selected and prioritised by those citizens. This will increase citizens' sense of ownership of those projects and accountability in the utilisation of county funds.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
