Introduction: This is a report by CARITAS Zambia on the issues around the allocation, disbursement and utilisation of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Zambia.
Constituency Development Fund was introduced in Zambia in 1995 as a means of providing local authorities in Zambia with discretionary finances for projects identified and implemented with community participation.
However, whereas over the years the amount of funds allocated for constituency development through the CDF has increased, there seems to be less community participation in the identification, design and implementation of CDF projects. Thus the objectives of this study were the following:
(a) To determine whether CDF guidelines are adhered to by the committees and local authorities that are mandated to manage the fund;
(b) To examine the level of knowledge and participation that the community has on CDF;
(c) To find out the type of projects that are funded under the CDF;
(d) To establish and assess whether the projects funded by CDF actually benefit the community and/or constituency;
(e) To find out whether the projects that are funded under CDF are adopted through a participatory method; and,
(f) Adherence to the government expenditure and procurement expenditure.
The main limitations to the data collection were that there were a number of instances where the key informants especially from the Councils did not make themselves available and that there was insufficient time allocated for data collection per constituency. Thus, it was difficult to reach remote parts of the districts.
The entire report can be downloaded here:
