ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY CAPACITY BUILDING ON PERFORMANCE OF DEVOLVED UNITS IN SELECTED COUNTY GOVERNMENTS IN KENYA
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Abstract
Civil society organizations play a prominent role in governance and are viewed as key to delivering government policy agendas of social action, open public services and grass root mobilization. A strong and positive relationship between democratic governments and the civil society has materialized to be a stable pillar in governance such that the civil society organizations are seen as an integral part of governance process. However, even in the most democratic and prosperous societies in the modern world, there are many services that are not adequately provided especially to the minorities therein creating a gap which is occupied by the civil societies. They therefore fulfill important duties of checks and balances in democracies with their ability to influence the government and hold it accountable. The objective of the study was to establish the civil society’ capacity building on performance of devolved units in Kenya. The study used the descriptive survey research design to analyze and describe the relationship between civil society’ civic participation and performance of devolved units in Kenya. The population of the study was all 1290 top management staff to be drawn from the civil society organizations registered in Kenya; 470 (county ministers and chief officers) in the county governments of Kenya. The data collection instruments were questionnaires. The study initiated a pilot study to pretest and validates the questionnaire. Content analysis was used to test data that is qualitative in nature or aspect of the data that was collected from the open ended questions. Regression analysis was carried out to test the nature of relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables at .05 level of significance. Results revealed that all the civil society’ capacity building dimension had a positive and significant relationship with performance of devolved governance units in Kenya. The results support the current theories related to the study. Consequently, this study provides national and county governments with insights of how to improve performance of devolved units through the civil society capacity building interventions. The study recommended that national and county governments should adopt a culture of incorporating civil society capacity building interventions. This could go a long way in ensuring there is improved performance of devolved units in the county governments of Kenya.
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