IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2005-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Efficiency and Efficacy of Kenya's Constituency Development Fund: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Mwangi S. Kimenyi

    (University of Connecticut)

Abstract

Kenya's Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is one of the ingenious innovations of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) Government of Kenya. Unlike other development funds that filter from the central government through larger and more layers of administrative organs and bureaucracies, funds under this program go directly to local levels and thus provide people at the grassroots the opportunity to make expenditure decisions that maximize their welfare consistent with the theoretical predictions of decentralization theory. Increasingly, however, concerns about the utilization of funds under this program are emerging. Most of the concerns revolve around issues of allocative efficiency. In this note, I highlight some of the constituency characteristics that impact on the efficiency and efficacy of CDF and also some political economy aspects associated with this program. In particular it is observed that CDF could have negative outcomes because of fiscal illusion and reduced local fiscal effort. The paper recommends an in-depth analysis of constituency characteristics that impact on the utilization of funds to ensure that the program achieves its full potential.

Suggested Citation

  • Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2005. "Efficiency and Efficacy of Kenya's Constituency Development Fund: Theory and Evidence," Working papers 2005-42, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-42
    Note: Research Concept Note
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2005-42.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sam Barrett, 2015. "Subnational Adaptation Finance Allocation: Comparing Decentralized and Devolved Political Institutions in Kenya," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 118-139, August.
    2. Harris, J. Andrew & Posner, Daniel N., 2022. "Does decentralization encourage pro-poor targeting? Evidence from Kenya’s constituencies development fund," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2006. "Economic Reforms and Pro-Poor Growth: Lessons for Africa and other Developing Regions and Economies in Transition," Working papers 2006-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    4. Milu Muyanga & Miltone Ayieko & Mary Bundi, 2007. "Transient and Chronic Rural Household Poverty: Evidence from Kenya," Working Papers PMMA 2007-20, PEP-PMMA.
    5. Muna Shifa & Murray Leibbrandt, 2017. "Profiling Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality in Kenya and Zambia at Sub-National Levels," SALDRU Working Papers 209, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuctus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.