Performance Budgeting in Kenya

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Kenya’s performance-based budgeting reform and the challenges it poses for institutional change and communication processes. Institutional change can be described as those fundamental reconfigurations of roles, functions, and structures for gradual adjustments to the desired changes. The chapter assesses the degree to which Kenya’s national and county budgetary institutions have changed to conform to the performance-based budgeting (PBB) reform model. It illustrates the theoretical practices of PBB followed by a glimpse of the real situation. Kenya’s performance budgeting era is associated with constitutional reforms that implemented fiscal decentralization and the legislation of the public financial management regulations. The principal institutional change challenge for PBB is linking the performance data at the national and county levels with the respective County Integrated Development Plan, Performance Budget, and annual performance status reports. The chapter explores whether the national and county performance budgets in Kenya serve as information and communication tools.