The Role of Participatory Communication in the Budgetmakingprocess: Case Study of Nairobi County

Abstract

The study sought to establish the role of participatory communication in the budget making process in the devolved governments with the case study being Nairobi County. It is an attempt to bring to light the role of participatory communication in the management of the public funds in the area of resources mobilization and allocation, with an aim of proposing genuine and effective participatory communication strategies. Though the country has put in place legal tools and policy frame work to enable public participation in budget making process both at the national and the county level of government these are yet to be fully implemented by the devolved governments. The policy and legal instruments also provide broad policy statement with very little specifics with regards to how and when the public participation is supposed to take place. The study sought to investigate the extent of participatory communication in the budget making process at the county government of Nairobi, communication strategies used and the challenges of participatory communication during the process of budget making. The study focused specifically on the participatory communication during the budget making process at the County government of Nairobi. The study was approached from participatory communication theories perspective. This is the theory and the practice of using communication to involve people in decision making process. case study research design was used and the study used qualitative and quantitative method of research, the rationale for using this approach was to explore and describes the answers from respondents and also other variables in the study like attitudes, perceptions, , and preferences. Data was collected from specific respondents who are responsible for budget making process at the county government, these respondents were determined through purposive sampling the study also used convenience sampling to collect data from the members of public. Instruments used to collect data were questionnaires and interviews. The study found that participatory communication as a strategy has not been incorporated in the budgeting process at the county and that there challenges and legal obstacle that hinder participatory communication in the budget making process. The study recommends correctives measures in a number of strategies to overcome these challenges, the study proposes that the county enact an legislations to entrench the aspect of communication in their budgeting process, use of multiple channel of communication allocation of resources towards communication function and civic education for people to understand the concept of public participation in budget making process.