Where Does the Money Go: Citizen participation in Turkana County, Kenya

Overview

This case study is about Oxfam’s work with the Turkana people, who live in one of Kenya’s poorest counties. Kenya has a system of devolved budgets, which in theory gives local people the opportunity to become involved in local authority funding of community projects. However, initial surveys found that in fact few people knew about the budgets, and even fewer were involved. So Oxfam undertook a series of training workshops for local people, who then chose social auditors from within their communities who were able to look more deeply into how local projects were being run and how they could be improved. The project also worked with local government officials. This case study – one of a series of Programme Insights on Local Governance and Community Action – looks at what worked and the challenges that this kind of work continues to face.