Citizens' perceptions

3. IMPACT OF DECENTRALISATION: CITIZENS’ PERCEPTIONS

3.1. Awareness and Knowledge of the Policy

Findings show that 84.7% of respondents knew or were aware of the National Decentralisation Policy. Only 15% didn’t know. Also, 61.3% knew about the East African Community (EAC) integration program, 11% had scanty information while 28% didn’t know; 67% knew about the EDPRS, while 33% didn’t have any knowledge of the EDPRS. Just over a half (51.2%) had got information about the EDPRS from local leaders, while 36.5% had got information from community meetings. Only 11.5% had got information from radio or Television. Those who knew about the EAC regional integration program and its benefits cited the free movement across the border with national Identity card.

3.2. Citizens’ access to and satisfaction with service delivery

The most felt impact of decentralization mentioned by citizens and stakeholders is increased access to and reliability of service delivery. Basic services are closer, more reliable, of higher quality and more accessible by most citizens. As shown in Figure 2 below, most citizens strongly believe that services are more accessible (81%), faster (75%), cheaper (73%) and more reliable (76%) under decentralization than would be if decentralization policy were not implemented.