Beyond CDF: Making Kenya’s Sub-Sovereign Finance Work for the Socially-Excluded

With this study, readers are urged to take a new and more systematic look at sub-sovereign finance in Kenya. Devolved funding schemes should be viewed within the broader perspective of human capital formation and asset-building. Once put into such a framework, new ideas and avenues evolve for devolved funding to become more productive for the vast number of Kenyans who have largely been excluded from the economic growth of this country in recent years. There is a vast, hitherto largely untapped potential for socially-inclusive development in Kenya, taking off from existing structures, organizations and institutions of the non-governmental sector, the social economy, and various governmental and semi-governmental agencies. This potential needs to be developed. In effect, devolved funding should become part of a wider approach in building social economy in Kenya, by taking off from a holistic understanding of what human development is all about, and by suggesting a comprehensive and innovative institutional and legal framework for socially-inclusive local economic and community development.