Description

The effective participation of citizens in development and policy initiatives in Yatta Constituency in Machakos County, Kenya, has been a challenge. This is attributable to inadequate and limited access to information about policies and service standards, and the lack of a platform for mobilization and participation of citizens in decision making processes. Another contributing factor is the conflictual nature of the relationship between citizens and non-responsive leaders and service providers.

In 2008, an advocacy approach called Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) was introduced in Yatta Constituency through Yatta Integrated Program Area (IPA). The objective was to strengthen the relationship and dialogue between citizens and service providers, by educating and empowering communities to provide feedback to government officials and non-governmental entities on their performance of basic service deliveries.

The CVA methodology servers as a platform for citizens to understand public policies, so they can monitor whether their government is delivering services to standards that had been previously established. Service providers are also informed of their obligations and the need to accept positive criticism from service consumers.

In Yatta, the process began with the selection of community representatives. Through a transparent process, those leaders were chosen from within community based organizations (CBO) in the villages of Ndalani and Matuu (coverage area of World Vision Yatta IPA). The representatives together with the IPA staff were then taken through an intensive two-week training, which focused on public policy, planning and budgeting in government, decentralized funds, procurement, project management, advocacy, and communication and social accountability.

As the group followed the CVA process, an interface meeting was held and community representatives joined service providers in order to discuss contributing factors to poor service delivery. They agreed that there was a need for the monitoring of public services, so the local government could be held accountable for its commitments.

Taking advantage of the window of opportunity opened up by the local leadership, the community members were able to monitor 36 Constituency Development Fund (CDF) projects with focus on water (dams, water tanks), education (classrooms for primary and polytechnics), and health facilities. The emphasis was on their relevance, level of community participation and effectiveness. The product of their work was an interim report, which was shared with local leaders on August 2010. At the sharing meeting the CDF team accepted that the report was a true reflection of the situation of the ground but absolved itself by stating that the project management committees (PMCs) are the ones responsible for the mismanagement and non completion of projects. To date the CDF committee has completed some of the projects which were identified by the CVA team as incomplete.