Expand Opportunities for Civic Participation (ELG0006)

Widen civic engagement space by expanding opportunities for participation and, enhance access to information, feedback mechanisms and complaints management for special interest groups.
Commitment Start and End Date: 1st September, 2018 – 31st August, 2020
Lead implementing agency/actor
Department of Public Service Management and County Administration
Commitment description
What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
Inaccessibility to secure spaces for Children, Youth, Women, persons with disabilities (PWDs) among other special interest groups to freely express their voices and to authoritatively shape the county government’s budget and policy priorities, has caused unintended marginalization because the needs of these groups are not fully catered for in public budgets and policies. The current county budget 2018/19 under Social Protection and Empowerment Sector has about KES 88 million (USD 880,000) earmarked for budgetary programs targeting this segment. This funding is spread across the programs of Youth and Vocational Training Centers and, Social Empowerment programs respectively and comprise of a grant from the World Bank of USD 41,000 targeting to develop Youth Polytechnics. In particular to children, the county budget has a provision of KES 13.5 million which is intended to cater for the Vulnerable and the Elderly in addition to Children under Social Protection program. Both of these budgetary provisions are comparatively limited, too general and emerge from limited participatory opportunities. Whereas the ‘delegates system’ of public participation which was recently adopted by the county government following the implementation of commitment one in its Action Plan 2017 is a desirable remedy to poor representation of special interest groups, the existing spaces are still not facilitative and enabling for these target groups to meaningfully participate and influence the budget as reflected by limited budgetray provisions in the county budget.
What is the commitment?
The County Government of Elgeyo Marakwet undertakes to create secure and dedicated spaces and mechanisms to facilitate Children, Youth, Women, People with Disabilities (PWDs) and other special interest groups to shape and influence planning, budgeting and policy priorities to align to their needs and preferences. In addition, the county government commits to achieve collaboration level of International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) spectrum by; considering and incorporating inputs collected from these engagements in budgets and policies while providing justified feedback where such input is not used, and to collaborate with the county assembly to advance components of the county’s first OGP Action Plan relating to strengthening of participation. To improve integration and institutionalization of open government practices into the county’s operations, the commitment will re-structure the performance measurement process of the county government staff so as to include specific deliverables for public communication and feedback handling mechanisms, and adherence to public participation frameworks.
How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?
The commitment will establish forums for special interest groups of Children, Women, Youth and PWDs to channel their views and inputs to the county budgets and policies. It will also strengthen public feedback, complaints and compliments mechanisms by grounding these and other deliverables to relevant government staff performance contracts as a measure. Specifically, the performance measurement aims at streamlining public flow of information and, increasing citizen knowledge on government operations and functions of national government and county government to facilitate meaningful and informed public engagements, including securing spaces for special interest groups of children, youth and women and, enhancing collaboration of government and other stakeholders
Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
This commitment is relevant to civic participation and access to information by facilitating special interest groups to meaningfully engage in the government decision making processes
Additional information
Children, Youth, Women and PWDs needs are unique and whose effects are only understood and experienced by these particular segments of the population. However, the ability of the members of these groups to voice their concerns is usually curtailed by limitations inadvertently created by the nature, structure and design of the participatory process adopted which do not facilitate these groups to freely express their issues. Consequently, they become marginalized from the decisionmaking ecosystem. For example, the general assumption that the society represents the interest of children in public fora where budgetary and policy decisions are being made is disproved by poor reflection of the needs of special interest groups in the outputs of the decision-making processes. This therefore calls for the need to establish facilitative participatory avenues for direct participation by these groups.
Milestone Activity with a verifiable deliverable
Department of Finance and Economic Planning in collaboration with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) partners will objectively and exhaustively assess the current state of county’s budget responsiveness to Children, Youth, Women and PWDs to establish a baseline and provide relevant recommendations to facilitate greater participation of Children, Youth, Women, PWDs and other special interest groups and devise means in which the main budget can be more inclusive and responsive to their needs
Staff time, consultancy, conference costs, and stationery
Sep 2018 – Nov 2018
Department of Public Service Management and County Administration in collaboration with other relevant government departments, World Vision Kenya, CIOG Kenya among other CSO partners who are currently advocating for participation of Children, Youth, Women and people with disability (PWDs) will assess and expand existing frameworks (establish new spaces) for the target groups to engage in planning, budgeting, policy making and all legislative processes. The framework will also provide for annual forums with the governor and other political leaders to support outreach initiatives for actors promoting inclusion of special interests of children, youth, women and PWDs.
Staff time, consultancy, conference costs and ICT platforms
Sep 2018 – Apr 2019
4. Department of Public Service Management and County Administration will develop a policy to establish and operationalize a County Multi-stakeholder Development Forum, Sector Working Groups (SWGs) and Thematic Development Committees all of which will consider inclusivity for memberships of the various special interest groups
Staff time, conference costs, stationery, inventory of all development actors and ICT platforms
Sep 2018 - May 2019
Department of Public Service Management and County Administration in collaboration with other relevant government departments and CSO partners will develop civic education manuals, tools and relevant guidelines and, collectively forge synergy to conduct civic education to avoid duplication and mainstream deliverables to civic education and participation to staff performance contracts and partners program targets. The focus will be on thematic areas and target community groups such as Projects Management Committees (PMCs), Community Delegates, thematic and Sector Working Groups as identified during the co-creation of the Action Plan 2018-2020. Special consideration will be given to special interest groups’ capacity needs in a way of customization of the content.
Staff time, consultancy, conference costs, stationery and display boards and ICT platforms
Sep 2018 – July 2019
The Office of the County Secretary will diversify channels of communication by operationalizing Elgeyo Marakwet County Radio Station to facilitate dissemination of information, provide a platform for public engagement with service delivery officials and to carry out continuous civic education on targeted thematic areas with special emphasis on special interest groups’ capacity and information needs
Staff time, consultancy and content
Ongoing – July 2019
Department of Public Service Management and County Administration in collaboration with relevant CSO partners will institutionalize “Ward Open Days forums” to provide physical gathering of all key stakeholders at the ward level. The Open Forums are aimed at bringing together: County Executive led by Ward Administrator, Area Members of County Assembly (MCAs), CSOs, Women, Youth, PWDs Ward Development Committees, PMCs, Chiefs, Assistant Chiefs and Village Elders to; discuss quarterly implementation reports, evaluate ward priorities and their impact on development process and to facilitate an outreach platform for inclusivity of all special interest groups members
Staff time, consultancy, refreshment costs, advertisements, stationery, updated progress reports, display boards and ICT platforms
Sep 2018 - July 2019
Department of Public Service Management and County Administration, working together with County Assembly and CSO partners will amend the Elgeyo Marakwet County Public Participation Act, 2014 to institutionalize the delegates system approach to public participation by providing guidelines on criteria, scope and mode of delegates selection to ensure diversity and balanced representation.
Staff time, consultancy, conference costs, stationery and display boards and ICT platforms
Sep 2018 - June 2019
The Office of the County Secretary will finalize the preparation and implementation of the county information, communication and feedback policy whose preparation commenced during the implementation of the county government’s Local Action Plan I
Staff time, consultancy, conference costs, stationery and ICT platforms
Sep 2018 - Nov 2018
The County Department of Public Service and County Administration will mainstream complaints reporting mechanism into county staff performance contracting framework.
Staff time
Sep 2018 Nov 2018
The County Assembly will broadcast live County Assembly proceedings through radio and other mediums of communication so as to broaden the current reach
Staff time, ICT equipment and relevant software tools
Oct 2018 Continuous
Contact information
Name of responsible person from implementing agency
Mr. Samuel Kipchumba
Title, Department
Director County Administration, Department of Public Service Management and County Administration
Email and Phone
sammychumba@gmail.com / +254722924195
Other Actors Involved
Directorate of Communications, Committee on Complaints and Compliments Management, Office of the Clerk County Assembly, Directorate of ICT, Department of Economic Planning and Budgeting and Director Gender and Social Services
World Vision Kenya, Center for Innovation in Open Governance (CIOG Kenya), Elgeyo Marakawet County Civil Society (EMC CSO) Network.