Home » Media Centre » Press » TORs - A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KENYA’S CONSITUENCY DEVELOPMENT FUND IN RELATION TO GLOBAL MODELS
About Mzalendo Trust
Mzalendo Trust is a Kenyan non-partisan Parliamentary Monitoring Organization (PMO) started in 2005 and whose mission is to ‘promote open, inclusive, and accountable Parliaments in Kenya and Africa.’ We do so by creating and managing civic tech tools, producing evidence-based research, and leading and facilitating advocacy and partnerships with Parliaments, citizens, and other relevant stakeholders. We believe that success in our work will build more effective and responsive legislation and political processes that ultimately support Kenya’s national development goals. In line with our Strategic Plan 2021-2025, we anchor our work on three main pillars: Openness, Inclusion, and Accountability.
About the Project
With support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Netherlands through the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), Mzalendo is implementing the Power of Dialogue programme which envisages collaboration, influence and participation of political, civic actors and citizens for inclusive, transparent, and accountable political processes at the national and sub-national levels. The programme is being implemented under three broad areas of building a critical mass of enablers of change, support to the youth and women and enhancement of public participation and protection of civic space. In a bid towards ensuring that aspiring and elected young and women are influential actors, we seek to work with political parties and politically active youth to create open dialogue spaces for youth and young women to meaningfully engage in political and legislative processes.
Contextual Background
For many years since independence, Kenya has successfully employed the system of Harambee to raise funds for community projects. The term ‘Harambee’ means pulling together, initiated by the country’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta. However, with the increasing community needs, Parliamentarians found it difficult to cope with the number of Harambee-type projects the community wished to undertake. In addition, Government realised that some leaders had been misusing the Harambee system and needed to find a means to discourage such abuse as part of the war against corruption.
According to popular Kenyan perspectives, to be credible as a leader elected by the people to address developmental issues, one needed a source of money. Duly, in the 90’s MPs dreaded Harambees for endless projects in their constituencies, as they had promised their electorate. Harambees become a sitting MPs’ nightmare. This is why the bill to create the Constituency Development Fund went through Parliament and was passed in a single day[1].
The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) was introduced in Kenya in 2003 to decentralize development and ensure local-level resource allocation. The fund is anchored under the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) Act 2003, initiated through a private members Bill by Hon. Sen (Eng.) Muriuki Karue then Member of Parliament for Ol Kalou Constituency[2]. Prior to this, most of the development programmes in Kenya were conducted within the District Focus for Rural Development (DFRD) Strategy framework, which was implemented through Government Ministries, State Corporations, Local Authorities, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) with limited involvement of private sector.
Categories: Consultancy opportunities for Kenyans
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