New source of funding for Kenya's rural projects.

WHEN THE ROOF of Ngano nursery school in Nyandarua district, Central Kenya was blown away by speeding whirlwinds three years ago, over 30 children were left distressed with nowhere to attend class.

With fund raising--locally known as Harambee--officially outlawed, the nursery school committee had nowhere to turn to. Fortunately, with the coming to power of the new government in early 2003, the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) was established under an act of parliament.

"The Fund came at the right time for our children. We would certainly have continued having to take our young kids to very far nursery schools", remembers Jane Maina, a mother of one of the victims of the nursery disaster. Later on the nursery school received Ksh100,000 from the 01 Kalau CDF for the reconstruction of the new classroom and the kids went back to class the following year.

The signing into law of the CDF Act was done in late 2004 with the fund becoming operational in the 2003/4 financial year. The Fund was established to reduce overdependence on the central government to bring about development at the grassroots. CDF aims at decentralising development from Nairobi.

The 210 constituencies in the country receive a stipulated amount of money in each financial year to finance projects within their areas.

Currently, the funds allocated to the constituencies constitute 2.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. Members of parliament--who act as the custodians of the Fund in their constituencies--have been calling for the increase of the Fund to 7.5 per cent of the GDP. The funds are allocated and distributed according to the poverty and inequality levels. Beneficiaries of the CDF funding should be community-based development projects that ensure the benefits are enjoyed by all. Local communities identify projects according to their needs such as schools, water projects, health facilities, electricity and polytechnics.

The area Member of Parliament submits to the clerk of the national assembly the proposals for a particular constituency and the estimated cost. The projects also receive appraisals by the parliamentary committee, CDF committee and finally constituency committee. All works relating to a particular project are subject to the existing government regulations. The Fund has acted as a catalyst for rural development with people identifying and solving their most pressing needs. Some have used the kitty to repair their access roads for easy reach of agricultural produce to the market. "Our road now has murram and we can get our bananas easily to the tarmac road for transportation to the city. It had previously been difficult to do so", adds Kamau Wamaria, a farmer in Kiharu constituency, Central Kenya. Critics of the CDF programme have decried the lack of expertise in allocation and utilisation of the funds.

"All the funds have been allocated in an ad hoc way without planning. The relevant survey was not done and the funds were allocated without evaluating their success and failures", said Dr Othieno Nyanjom, a researcher in poverty eradication.

A report by a local think-tank, the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR), says that most money allocated via the CDF might not alleviate poverty. "There is danger of the CDF committees endorsing projects that are popular because the kitty is controlled by political leaders" warns IPAR executive director Dr Thomas Kibua.

Political interference, inefficiency of the committees running the Fund, lack of financial and management systems and poor capacity to manage the funds have been cited as some of the bottlenecks of this programme. Another problem is that of priorities: of the Ksh25mn allocated to Bumula constituency in the last financial year, 46 per cent went to education, 25 per cent to roads and bridges, nine per cent to water, seven per cent to administration, five per cent to emergency and two per cent to security.