Countries

Kenya

In Kenya, we spent the past decade supporting civil society actors to arm themselves with budget knowledge, and advocate for equitable and better-quality services. This has led to lasting changes in openness, inclusion and the transparency of budgeting processes.

Open Budget Survey Results

Public Participation

31

Budget Oversight

54

Transparency

46

View Results

Initiatives in Kenya

39.5%

higher allocation for operations and maintenance for the water sector in Baringo County.

800

budget champions were trained and became part of a growing network spanning the entire country.

International Budget Partnership Kenya

Summary

The International Budget Partnership in Kenya has pioneered new research initiatives, trained a broad field of budget practitioners and innovated ways to improve public participation. We now play a key role in convening civil society organizations and innovating how they connect and influence budget decisions at the national and sub-national levels The result of these efforts is effective social accountability practices to hold national and local governments accountable for how and where public money is spent.

Impacts to date:

Produced an annual County Budget Transparency Survey (CBTS) tracking timeliness, availability and comprehensiveness of key budget documents produced by Kenya's 47 counties.
Successfully seeded national budget cafes in 36 counties.
Trained and built a network of 70 budget facilitators and 800 budget champions across the country.
Created four regional budget hubs covering 28 counties.
Became a leading voice on advancing equity through budgets and ran an equity dialogue to track the country’s progress towards addressing inequalities and marginalization of women, children and the disadvantaged.
Developed, along with our partners, a wide range of tools to support civil society engagement with budgets in Kenya that are now used in other jurisdictions.
Visibly impacted equitable budgeting policies in the country to tackle inequalities.
Furthered and made a significant contribution to Public Financial Management (PFM) research in the country that has informed and helped expand the field in Kenya.

Going forward, we will continue working with grassroots organizations and communities to strengthen their capacity and participation in county and national budget processes. We will help ensure that in public finance spaces, their voices are heard and their recommendations implemented. This will be done through collaborative research, embedded capacity strengthening, continuous learning and advocacy. Our work is anchored in extensive research and is fully embedded in our work. We will continue to involve our partners and their communities to strengthen their involvement and ultimately improve service delivery.

Strengthening Public Accountability

Our Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program flips traditional public finance management work on its head by putting underserved communities at the center of budget advocacy.

I became involved in budget work to help my community better organize and engage in county budget making processes.

Rongai Leakwara, budget champion from the Ilchamus community Tweet

counties covered in the County Budget Transparency Survey (CBTS).

Tax Equity

Summary

We supported the Tax Justice Network Africa as it filed historic legal challenges to double taxation agreements using the tax haven of Mauritius, leading to the nullification of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement.

Gathering civil society, TJNA has forced the government to include civil society in treaty-making and how civic actors can use the courts to promote more open, effective and equitable tax processes and systems by forcing reviews of tax treaties and policies.

Tax Equity

Our tax equity initiative focuses on helping civil society build ties with diverse actors to influence domestic tax reform, so that the revenue reaped benefits the many rather than favoring a few.

Evidence has shown that contrary to their objectives, these DTAAs have led to double non-taxation and resulted in massive revenue leakage for African countries.

TJNA Director, Alvin Mosioma Tweet