N
eighbourhood Assembly that local government remains responsive and
concept has come of age
for up scaling and
Replication
Introduction
In the absence of a comprehensive framework
in the management of local affairs, efforts to
enhance citizen participation have had to rely
on the piecemeal administrative reforms
carried out since the late 1990s. These reforms,
however, have been insufficient to deliver
meaningful citizen participation and downward
accountability.
Examples of such piecemeal reforms include a
1999 directive to establish the Local Authorities
Transfer Fund (LATF), which transfers five
percent of national income tax to the country’s
175 local authorities (LAs). The release of 40 per
cent of a local authority’s allocation under the
LATF is contingent on the involvement of local
residents in drawing up a Local Authority
Service Delivery Action Plan.
Experience so far, however, suggests that
without a change in the culture of local
governance, the participatory processes created
through these reforms have been pigeon-holed;
there is no indication that they have the
potential to gradually transform mainstream
local government toward a culture of
transparency and answerability to local
residents. The culture of opacity remains
entrenched. Most municipal decision-making in
Kenya does not involve the public and
budgetary and expenditure information is
seldom available to the public.
Still, with the growing frustration has also come
an increased effort by civil society to ensure
transparent. One notable example of a civil
society-led initiative to carve a space for citizen
participation is the Neighbourhood Assemblies
C
hristian Partners Development
Agency (CPDA) Practical
Experience with Neighborhood
Assemblies
In 1998, the government of Kenya
advertised a call for proposals for
community-based projects. Financed by the
European Union, the Community
Development Fund expected community-
based organizations to raise 25 percent of
the proposed budget.
One self-help group based in the town of
Vihiga (which bears the same name as the
district in which it is located) was interested
to apply, but could not raise the necessary
funds from among its members. The group
of women sought advise on the matter from
the Christian Partners Development
Agency, which suggested they approach the
MP for their district.
At the MPs office, the women were told that
he was not in, but as they discussed their
next step, the MP walked through the office.
The group was disappointed by the lie, but
also inspired. They ultimately raised their
own money, and partly in disgust with the

state of politics, decided to reconfigure their
group as a Neighbourhood Assembly, a
parliament of villagers.
The concept of Neighbourhood Assemblies
has since been adopted by the Christian
Partners Development Agency. At the end
of 2009, there were over 150 neighborhood
assemblies established in Vihiga and
Kakamega Districts, and the organization is
currently looking for resources that would
allow them to upscale the model nationally
and regionally buoyed by the success in the
two pilot districts.
The NA concept
This concept draws from the ancient Greek
model of democracy where all male
household heads participated in decision
making process at the local level. The
dichotomy in this NA model with the Greek
one is that it is all inclusive through an open
door policy where women, men and youth
who have attained 18 years and above
automatically qualify to participate in the
discussions on issues that are of communal
concern.
The NAs are neutral forums and draws
membership from the local village level and
members have equal rights to be heard and
this is what captures the spirit of the NA
concept, an antithesis of local provincial
administration barazas/ meetings which are
highly intimidating to ordinary citizens to be
able to question oppressive and draconian
leadership and actions. It is only the
loyalists and bootlickers who are allowed to
speak in praise of the establishment and
statuesque.
O
ne idea, many issues
Neighbourhood Assemblies
are forms of village level
parliaments intended to
address common concerns
such as poverty, food security, local
leadership and governance. The assemblies
have an elected convener, who is expected
to represent the neighborhood’s interests in
other forums.
In essence, the assemblies are sites for
cultivating alternative forms of leadership.
They are not affiliated with any political
party; in fact, open party affiliation is
discouraged. The remit of the assemblies is
determined by the assemblies themselves,
though each is operated with a similar
governance structure. As a new assembly is
established, the Christian Partners
Development Agency provides training for
assembly members on the procedures and
principles of modus operandi.
The assemblies rely on public deliberation,
careful recording of minutes and democratic
voting. They have tackled an array of
different issues ranging from public
accountability to human rights abuses ; below
are few examples of Neighbourhood Assemblies
successful stories .
Relief Food Scandal: In Vihiga division , Magui
NA , successfully followed up on the
mismanaged relief food supplies by the
assistant chief . The compliant was forwarded
to the District Commissioner, who initiated
investigations that eventually led to the
dismissal of the administrator.
An effort by Chanda Neighbourhood Assembly
to improve the lives of the community is but an
understatement. Among many community
service the NA has undertaken include ,

successfully lobbying for CDF funds for Chanda
and Chambiti secondary school, the schools
received K.sh 300000 and 700000 respectively .
The NA has also been instrumental in ensuring
that the community benefit from the rural
electrification program by applying for
installation of electricity under Umeme Pamoja
Project .In addition the NA has also made a
follow up on issues of human rights abuses ,
example they made a successful follow up of
mysterious murder and secret burial of a boy in
the village , the
matter was
presented to the
Permanent
Secretary Internal
security who
responded by
sending a team of
CID officers to investigate the case . The NA has
also petitioned the former president Mr. Moi
for failing to pay compensation to one of his
former Employer late Mr. Libeya who had
worked for him at a Little Farm in Nakuru . The
NA is still waiting for a response from the
provincial state counsel.
In Sabatia the joint NA sessions have handled
arrays of issues but the more pronounced
follow up is the construction of Chavakali
Market . The members of Chavakali
Neighbourhood Assembly initiated a process of
investigating the quality of work in progress at
the site . They established that there was a
considerable variation in terms of what was on
paper and the actual. In response the
government sent its senior officers on the fact
finding mission and in pursuit , the
Parliamentary Accounts Committee led by Hon
Mwandegu visited the scene and made their
recommendations . Members of the NA were
invited at a sitting in Nairobi to give evidence.
The NA is still waiting for the verdict from
Parliament about their poorly constructed
market. Other issues that the Joint Chavakali NA
has tackled include lobbying for installation of
street light which later on turned out to be a
source of corruption, the NA found that the
tender process was not done in a transparent
manner and over shilling 1.4 million could not
be accounted for. The NA is still demanding for
inclusion in project implementation in the area,
citing the failed street lights as a classical
example of poor governance by the local
authority .Other social audits that the NA
followed include the mismanagement of
Solongo Youth Polytechnic CDF funds by the
board , the NA presented the concern to the
Ministry officials and the Provincial
Administration , in reaction the board was sent
packing and the head of the institution sacked .
a close to 1.8 million had been set for fixing
power in the institution . By now the power
lines have been dropped at the college, one
new used vehicle has been purchased for
mechanic class, thanks to quick intervention by
the Neighbourhood Assembly.
Sustainability
The Alternative Leadership Project
endeavors to equip people with
knowledge in good governance. This
knowledge remains with the people to
be passed on orally and through books,
brochures, pamphlets, newsletters etc. It
is envisaged that the education,
information and creation of awareness
processes will continue over time as
people adopt alternative leadership
modes so will convention be established
and maintained.
This project is also seen as people
owned by virtue of their direct
participation in organizing for meetings,
reports and follow ups on their
deliberations. Being a village based
initiative, running cost for sustainability
are very minimal and can be met by the
community through their own planning
and coordination. Having built the
capacities of the community, through
NAs and trained conveners,
sustainability of the project is assured.
We intend to strengthen the networking
capacities and linkages with the various
community resource own persons
(CORPs).
Being an advocacy forum for human
rights, as an organization, CPDA
envision a scenario where NAs will
increasingly be involved in livelihood
issues as rights based concerns. At the
grassroots majority depend on agri-
based means to meet their basic needs;
a lot of rights are trampled upon by
various institutions which have a direct
link with people. The NA framework is
better placed to address these issues
among small scale farmers and artisans.
In line with CPDAs long term objective
of playing a facilitative role through
empowerment, it has moved away from
micro managing the NAs to hands off
approach. This is attested by the fact
that a number of NAs are now are
accessing support directly from
government and other donors ( Women
Enterprise funds , Youth Enterprise
Funds , Njaa Marufuku , APHIA II, World
Bank , TOWA, KCDF,)
Collaboration
As a result of the good work of
championing the rights of common man
within the grassroots society, NAs are
increasingly getting recognition among
institutions at the local, national and
regional levels.
At the local level, the importance of NAs
is increasingly being recognized by local
assistant chiefs, chiefs. Even the
general community members are turning
to NAs for interventions when their
rights have been trampled upon by local
administration and local public
institutions of governance. They have
used this platform to lodge complaints
against arbitrary arrests, corruption,
thuggery, rape and defilements by by
people who have been entrusted with
responsibilities as parents and
guardians.
At the national level, they work closely
with divisional heads and line ministries
especially that of Agriculture for
extension services, local authorities,
social development on the issues of
service delivery. They are also engaging
the district community policing office to
learning more on the concept and also
channel their grievances for action.
We have also partnered with Actionaid
Kenya in public expenditure monitoring
and reviews, advocacy campaigns on
constitution, Millennium Development
Goals ,Local Authorities Transfer Fund
(LATF) among others,
The project also worked with the NGO
Council as a member of the pro-poor
working group in conjunction with
government on Poverty Reduction
Strategy Programme (PRSP) to collect
data in Vihiga District.
At the regional level, a number of
Kenyan based NGO have also visited
CPDA and NAs in Vihiga District to learn
the concept and replicate it in
Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda,
Tanzania and Southern Sudan as
peace building initiative.
Conclusion
The world over, experts and scholars in peace
building and conflict resolution are burning the
midnights oil in search of contemporary models
to contain the ever changing forms of conflict
and hence the UN – Secretary general His
Excellency Ban Ki-moon’s appeal for a fresh and
out of the box approach. This concept can
effectively be adopted to manage conflict, and
has an in-built mechanism for early warning
systems to detect and diagnose issues that
portend conflict. This article is meant to act as a
talking paper to showcase the NA concept and
appeal for national, regional, international
communities, policy makers and scholars of
conflict management and peace builders to
rethink their approaches and embrace new
models.