Participatory Budgeting and Service Provision in Kiambu County, Kenya

Abstract

Despite regulatory legal provisions in the budget-making procedure, devolved governments continue to struggle to provide pertinent data to the public, with marginal deliberation, participation and enfranchisement. As a consequence, county administrations are yet to obtain optimum degree of public involvement in the budgeting process. It is in view of these that the study explored effects of participatory budgeting on service provision in Kiambu County. Particularly, it examined the effect of stakeholder consultation and information sharing on service provision in Kiambu County, Kenya. The study was anchored on the Participatory Democratic Theory. This research employed descriptive survey design and the target population was 1,102 respondents comprising of county budget and economic forum, Sub-County administrators, sector working group members, village council members and citizens for participants whereby a simple random selection procedure and purposive sampling technique was utilized to determine representative respondents for the study. Through a formula, a sample size of 110 was targeted. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data that was analyzed through descriptive and inferential methods.  The regression model findings established a positive insignificant linear relationship between stakeholder consultation and service provision in Kiambu County (? = 0.496; P > 0.05). On the other hand, a positive significant linear relationship between information sharing and service provision in Kiambu County was established (? = 0.786; P < 0.05). The study concluded that information sharing played a significant role in the provision of quality service in Kiambu County while stakeholder consultation was found to be insignificant in-service provision in Kiambu County. The study recommended that the Kiambu County Government should focus more on information sharing by ensuring there is proper dissemination and flow of information and communication clearly spelt out so that every stakeholder.

Keywords: Participatory Budgeting, Service Provision, stakeholder consultation, Information Sharing