ASSESSING THE INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ON SERVICE DELIVERY IN KENYA COUNTY GOVERNMENTS: A CASE OF LAIKIPIA COUNTY
ASSESSING THE INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ON SERVICE DELIVERY IN KENYA COUNTY GOVERNMENTS: A CASE OF LAIKIPIA COUNTY
James Ekale - Master’s Student, Public Administration and Management, Mount Kenya University, Kenya
Dr. Ruthwinnie Munene - Lecturer, Mount Kenya University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Following the general elections in March 2013, Kenya implemented devolution. The major goal was to restore local communities' ability to engage in the administration of their own affairs while also making government services accessible to the populace locally. The duty to ensure that citizens participate in local affairs has been delegated to county governments. As it improves transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to local community demands, public involvement is a crucial instrument in the successful, efficient, and economical delivery of services to residents. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the relationship between public participation and service delivery in Kenya's Laikipia County. The study's goals were find the influence of information accessibility on service delivery in Laikipia County. The stakeholder's theory and public choice theory based the study's foundation. The study used descriptive research approach with a population of 570491 Laikipia County inhabitants based on the estimated population from the 2019 National Census. The sample size was 400 respondents. In order to gather primary data, questionnaires were employed. Pilot test was carried out Nakuru East Sub- County in Nakuru County to 40 respondents to test validity and reliability. The information gathered from the surveys was sorted, revised, and coded for analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative analytic techniques were used in the data analysis. The data was examined with the aid of the spreadsheet programmes SPSS and Excel, and both descriptive statistics (distribution tables, percentages) and inferential statistics (regression multiple models and regression) were applied. Based on the findings the study concluded that there was a moderate positive and statistically significant correlation between information accessibility and service delivery (r = 0.523; p < 0.05). These results implied that information accessibility had a positive influence on servicer delivery in form of allocation efficiency, accessibility of services, accountability, equity and quality of services in Laikipia county, Kenya. This study recommended that information accessibility should be enhanced to improve on service delivery.
