Lack of available information regarding rural investments is a hindrance to assessing development results and planning of future investments at the sub-national levels.
This was the finding of a recent World Bank report undertaken throughout the country that aimed to assist policy makers, program sponsors and implementers to make informed decisions.
The study which looks into the effectiveness of the four funding models namely the Provincial Constituency Development Fund(PCDF),Rural Development Fund(RDF),EU Rural Advancement Management Program(RAMP) and Rural constituency Livelihood program(RCLP) indentifies interesting findings.
It highlighted that there is a tradeoff between the speed of disbursement and quality assurance processes and each of the programs can benefit from improvements in different areas.
“RCLF lacks procedural guidelines for its activities and while the CDF legislation (2013) provides some specifics, there will remain a need for a significant amount of detail in order to strengthen the performance of RCLF as an effective delivery mechanism for development assistance.”
The report also found that Constituency Development Officers lack the professional skills to design and implement technical sound development projects, and they are often driven by political imperatives rather than development priorities.
Results have shown that only RDP,PCDF and RCLF have showed strong rankings in their efficiency whilst RDP and PCDF shows strong effectiveness in terms of leverage, link to log frame and monitoring.
This therefore calls for greater integration and institutionalization of the funding programs for the strengthening of provincial connection to communities.
Whilst the responsibility for the implementation of the RCLF/CDF funded activities should shift to better resourced and less politically compromised entities such as the provincial government, certified NGOs,RDP community groups or central government ministries or authorities.
As this would be in contrast to the constituency funds which pass through line ministries, but which are beyond their administrative control the report recommends.
That calls for the development of an implementation manual for RCLF and all CDFs for standardization to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Thus unit cost data must be shared across all these programs to allow for a more effective budget preparation and review to bring the oval the costs of public investments down.
By DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
