STATEMENT BY HON. PETER KENNETH, ASSISTANT MINISTER OF STATE FOR PLANNING, NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND VISION 2030 DURING THE AFRICA COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING FIELD VISIT TO GATANGA CONSTITUENCY.

Honourable Minister;

Distinguished Guests;

Ladies and gentlemen,

Distinguished guests,

It gives me great pleasure to be here with you today and to be part of this very important event in the calendar of AfCoP. To begin with, I would like to take this opportunity, being the member of Parliament, to welcome you all to Gatanga Constituency.

I am informed that one objective of this meeting is to share good MfDR practices in Africa. As you are all aware, Managing for Development Results (MfDR) is a management strategy that focuses on using performance information to improve decision making. MfDR in action is diverse, adaptive, creative, and is part of the effort by both national governments and development agencies to reduce poverty, support sustainable and equitable economic growth, and better define and measure development outcomes. This is in agreement with the one of the objective of our country's development agenda outlined in the Kenya Vision 2030. I am highly grateful to KCoP for choosing to showcase our CDF projects as some of the good MfDR practices in the country.

Distinguished guests

The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) was established in 2003 through an Act of parliament with an objective to fight poverty and adopt a bottom-up project identification, planning and implementation approach to development. The Fund is one of the Government's initiatives aimed at contributing to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015 and transforming Kenya into medium-income economy by the year 2030. The CDF concept is considered to be one of the best concepts to be thought of and implemented in the country in the recent times.

Since the inception of the fund, a large number of social and infrastructure projects have been initiated and completed to the benefit of citizens. The fund has enabled Kenyans to experience the value of public resources, and the ordinary citizen can now participate in decision making on development matters of their local areas.

One of the greatest achievements of the fund  has been the shifting of project selection and formulation from line ministries to communities, thereby encouraging local initiatives, ownership, participatory monitoring, accountability and sustainability. In addition, the programme has created employment within the communities through the awarding of contracts to local artisans and sourcing of local materials. Communities are empowered through direct involvement in project selection, planning and implementation.

Distinguished guests,

There has also been general improvement in the infrastructure in most constituencies, especially for social facilities. The bursary component of CDF has reduced the dropout rate in secondary and tertiary institutions, especially amongst orphans. The budget allocation for constituencies has also been steadily on the rise. In the 2009/10 budget, the total allocation was Ksh 12 billion.  In the 2010/11budget allocation, the amount increased to Ksh. 14.3billion, reflecting an increase of 2.3 billion.

Distinguished guests

Gatanga Constituency, situated in Murang'a county, has an estimated population of 170,000 people. The main economic activity in the area is agriculture mainly focusing on coffee and tea farming as well as horticulture. One of the key landmarks is the Ndakaini dam that provides 80 per cent of the water being used in the city of Nairobi. The CDF projects in this constituency are mainly in health, education and security sector. The 5 MfDR principles, harmonization; ownership; accountability; and knowledge sharing focusing on development performance and sustainable improvement of development outcomes are evident in the various CDF projects in this constituency. This has contributed to the visible achievements in this constituency.

Distinguished Guests

CDF projects in this constituency have resulted to increased activities and has greatly resulted to improved well being of the people. The two projects that you will be visiting today are a sub-district hospital and a youth polytechnic in the health and education sector respectively. The visit also presents you with an opportunity to meet and interact with the local people who have actively participated at the various stages of the projects and are also beneficiaries.

Ladies and gentlemen , it is a pleasure to have you visiting this constituency. I do hope you will be able to enjoy the panaromic views as you go through the constituency.

Asanteni na Karibuni Tena Hapa Kwetu