Urban Verses Rural Citizens’ Participations in Devolved Funds. The Case of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Kanduyi Constituency of Bungoma County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare participation in CDF projects between urban and rural citizens in Kanduyi constituency of Bungoma County. The study compared the fund’s awareness levels among the two groups, their participation in project identification, planning and implementation. A descriptive survey design was adopted with the study sampling 42 projects from the departments of water and sanitation, roads and bridges, agriculture, health, education, environment and electricity. First the administration Wards were stratified as urban and rural, from each ward and per department one project was randomly sampled for the study. From each project sampled, five beneficiaries and two project officials were randomly selected to participate in responding to the questionnaire. Thus a total of 84 project officials and 210 beneficiaries took part in the study. Data was analysed with the help of SPSS computer package and results presented quantitatively in form of frequency tables and bar graphs. The findings indicated that awareness and knowledge of the fund and participation in the projects is higher among rural citizens. Since the trend across developing countries is that populations are moving towards urban centres and that urbanizations is increasing rapidly, the study recommended that CDF should rethink its strategy towards reinforcing higher urban participation so as to go the trend of urbanization and in so doing it will be a stimulus for better urban development.

Keywords: Participation, Citizens and Projects

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-16-15

Publication date:August 31^st 2020