The effectiveness of public participation in county government development projects: a case of Kericho County, Kenya

Abstract

This research assessed the effectiveness of public participation in county government development projects, in Kericho County. The researcher was concerned that the legal and institutional framework in Kericho County, has failed to guarantee the full attainment of the goals of the 2010 constitution, on public participation. The specific objectives were: to assess the modes of participation by the public in county development projects; to analyze the extent of involvement of the public in county development projects; and to investigate the level of access to information for the public concerning county development projects. The study adopted The Rational Choice Model by Adam Smith to be able to explain participation of individuals in county projects. The study utilized concurrent mixed research design. The researcher deployed purposive sampling as part of cluster sampling. Primary data collection was executed using questionnaires with both structured and unstructured questions, and interview schedules. Secondary data was obtained through document and reports analysis. A selected sample of 250 respondents from an infinite population of approximately 375,668 (IEBC Voter register 2017) citizen aged 18years and above was used in the study. 10 respondents were involved in the interview schedule. The treatment and analysis of data in this research was done considering the research questions. Data analysis was done using SPSS program which gave two descriptive statistics; frequencies, and percentages. The results were presented in tables and used to discuss the findings. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The study established that despite the various modes of participation, the most used mode was election of project leaders which yielded a response of 106 or 45.5% of the total response; it was noted that, most people may not be aware of the importance of their participation, and thus could not embrace these modes. The study also found out that public involvement at various levels of project development may be quite low, with the highest being project identification and implementation both of which yielded about twenty-five percent 25.4% response. The study further established that the main sources of information on county development projects are barazas (public meetings) that were affirmed by about fifty-one percent 50.6% respondents; social media/internet/website was affirmed by 104 about forty-five percent 44.6% of the respondents; other sources were underutilized. The study concludes that, participation in development projects is below the desired levels. This study recommends that, Kericho County need to improve public participation in development projects in all sectors and even more, ensure that it achieves greater positive impact.