Paper

How Fair are Revenue Sharing Mechanisms in Fighting Intra-County Inequalities in Kenya?

April 2018 | By John Kinuthia, International Budget Partnership Kenya

Kenya’s latest attempt at devolution, as enshrined in the 2010 constitution, aspires to a rigorous, transparent, and equitable approach to sharing resources across the country based on a national revenue sharing formula.

While discussions of equity and marginalization in Kenya have traditionally focused on revenue sharing among counties, data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and the Society for International Development shows that inequalities are just as severe below the county level.

This paper looks at several approaches Kenya counties have taken to distribute resources through their budgets to determine if these approaches address intra-county inequalities.

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Authors

John Kinuthia

Senior Program Officer, IBP Kenya, International Budget Parnership

John is a Senior Program Officer at the International Budget Partnership Kenya (IBPK). He joined IBP in October 2012 just as Kenya’s ambitious devolution program was taking off. John leads IBPK’s research and analytical work in Kenya, and he is part of the team that works to promote budget transparency and to improve public engagement on how the government raises and spends public resources.

He has done extensive research on Kenya’s public finance system for evidence generation that IBP uses to provide technical support to civil society organizations and, in some cases, government agencies. John’s research focuses on equitable revenue sharing mechanisms, equity in government expenditure, social protection, budget credibility, public participation in budgets, sub-national budget transparency, among other areas. His role also includes supporting capacity building and the publication of guides and tools that IBPK uses to improve community engagement with national and sub-national government budgets. John also plays a role in coordinating IBP’s programmatic work in Kenya, including supporting fundraising and administrative tasks.

John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), an MBA in Strategic Management from the Kenya Methodist University, and a professional award on Decentralization and Local Governance from SOAS University of London.

Before joining IBP, John worked with Twaweza East Africa as an Associate Analyst, where he helped to build the Kenya Budget Explorer, a centralized budget portal, to improve citizens’ access to budget information.  He is a big data enthusiast, a happy bee farmer, and a part-time historian.

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