Kenya is meant to have revised the way it shares revenue among the 47 counties by January 2015. The Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) submitted their recommendations to the Senate on how to revise the current formula in November 2014. IBP Kenya felt that there was inadequate awareness among the public about this issue and engaged in a number of activities to inform the wider public about the formula as well as to influence the decision making process, including:
Working with CSOs and the Public
IBP Kenya involved the public by holding various fora in the counties around revenue sharing. Usually, this topic is deemed too technical for the wider public to participate. IBP Kenya sought to disprove this by holding meetings in Siaya, Taita Taveta, Isiolo, Bondo, Nairobi, Uasin Gishu, Nyeri, and coastal regions where the public was engaged in deep discussions through an exercise developed by IBP using fictional counties to share a pot of money that they were given. This exercise put the public in the driver’s seat and motivated discussions not just about how to share money among counties, but within counties down to the ward level.
IBP Makes A Movie!
Following the filming of these public fora in the months of September and October IBP Kenya, working with Lightbox, produced a movie, “A Measure of Fairness” which was screened on 20 November 2014 during a national revenue sharing meeting.
National Meeting on Revenue Sharing Formula
This meeting was held on 20 November 2014 and was attended by civil society, media, and the wider public. Also present was Senator Zipporah Kittonya, a member of the Senate budget committee and the Chair of the Senate Health Committee. Other important members who attended the event included Commissioner Rose Osoro and Prof. Wafula Masai of the Commission on Revenue Allocation, who both made presentations on the formula, and Kamotho Waiganjo from the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution.
Twitter Chats
IBP Kenya used social media platforms to engage the public, civil society, and parliament on the topic. Several Twitter chat discussions were held that sought to bring in the public and media to talk about the formula (use #FormulaWatchKE and #SharingRevenueKE to view the discussions). The sessions focused on the first CRA formula, our recommendations on revising the first formula, the three key principles of sharing, and some of the changes introduced in the new formula recommendations.
Memorandum on the Analysis of the CRA’s Second Generation Formula
CRA released the recommendations on how to revise the first formula in November 2014. IBP Kenya analyzed CRA’s recommendations and produced a memorandum that was sent to the Senate committees of Finance and Devolution for review and consideration. This memo was also sent to the National Assembly Budget Committee for review.
Discussions by County Assembly Members
IBP Kenya held discussions with members of the County Assembly from various counties on how to share resources within their wards. IBP Kenya, in collaboration with the Society for International Development (SID), has held four forums where IBP Kenya engaged the assembly members on these discussions using the formula exercise.
Actual Submission
The CRA asked IBP Kenya to make a submission in July 2014 concerning revisions to the first formula for revenue sharing that was approved by parliament in 2012. The submission included Annex 1 which held all the data and tables discussed in the memo and Annex 2 which contained a final simulation of our proposed formula. We also made a presentation to the CRA which summarizes the five key messages of the recommendations. Furthermore, IBP Kenya was invited again by CRA along with other partners to a two day technical meeting to present our recommendations on what parts of the formula should be revised. A simplified summary of our submission was published in September 2014.
IBP Animated Film
In addition to the recommendations that we submitted to the CRA, IBP Kenya released an animated film – Mwita’s Dilemma – which explains key principles of revenue sharing focusing on need, capacity, and effort. The film has been used in most of the county budget trainings and formula discussions at the county level to drive a discussion on how to share resources fairly across and within counties.
Formula Forums
We held a number of county level forums where we filmed citizens discussing how resources should be shared. The first round of discussions in the month of September covered Narok, Nairobi, and Siaya counties.
Infographics
IBP Kenya produced an infographic that explains the sources of revenues for counties, with a focus on how the equitable share (the main national transfer to counties) is shared among the 47 counties and an infographic on effective, fair, and transparent sharing of revenues in Kenya which explained our recommendations to the CRA on how to revise the formula.