Governance and Accountability

Kenya raises 20% of GDP in tax revenue. Tax revenues are the biggest source of long-term financing for sustainable development and the Kenyan constitution clearly specifies equity as an expected outcome. With the positive economic growth and investment opportunities, Kenya has a great potential to mobilise more tax revenues, provide public services to its people, and reduce inequality. In order to realise this, there is need to improve governance and accountability within civil society organisations so that they and citizens can influence progressive tax mobilisation, gender responsive allocation and effective utilisation of resources for public services.

Through our Governance and Accountability programming, Oxfam Kenya is working with partners to ensure equitable raising, gender-responsive allocation and spending of financial resources at national and county level and a vibrant and dynamic civil society that is maximising its space and effectively mobilising citizens, 
advocating for citizen’s rights and holding government to account on equitable raising, allocation and spending of financial resources.

1. National and County Governments increasingly prioritise the specific needs and priorities of vulnerable and marginalised women in the allocation, raising and spending of Government resources by 2030.
2. Citizens are actively engaged and significantly influence decision making on resource raising, allocation and spending by the National and County Government by 2030 .
3. National and local Civil Society Organisations have improved transparent and accountable governance system and are able to influence and hold National and County governments to account to effectively deliver their responsibilities. 


Developing countries currently find themselves in the worst financing situation in decades. Still reeling from the global Covid pandemic, rising food and energy costs, intensifying climate crisis and a worsening of the global economy, the likelihood of realizing the Sustainable Development Goals is looking increasingly difficult due to deepening austerity and a growing debt crisis. 43 of the African Union’s member states plan to cut their public spending by a cumulative 5.4% of GDP in 2021-26, totalling $186bn, and African governments now spend almost three times more on debt servicing than on education, and six times as much as their health spending. Beyond the potentially devastating effects on poverty, the effect of years of austerity amidst growing poverty risks also undoing the social contract and undermining democracy and political stability.

To avoid austerity and instead increase investments in pro-poor and gender just development there is a pressing need for countries to increase progressive DRM. Nowhere are the challenges and needs more pressing than on the African continent, where countries on average only collect 29% of the taxes implied by its tax rates and the continent’s tax systems increase inequality by 1% on average. Wealth taxes (taxes on property, inheritance, capital gains etc.) hold a promising role to solve these challenges as they are both highly progressive and highly underutilized in Africa, collecting only 0.35% of GDP, the lowest of any region. The project which is being implemented between January 2022, and December 2026 aims to improve oversight on government expenditure, advocate for stronger commitments on free, public quality education, challenge privatization of essential public services in education and champion climate justice for a sustainable future for present and future generations.

The overall objective of the Project is: The space and capacity of accountability stakeholders is increased to promote progressive Domestic Revenue Mobilization.

The main outcomes of the Project are:

• Just Societies: This objective seeks to improve governance in Kenya by engaging diverse civil society groups to make public finance management at both county and national levels more democratic, accountable, and inclusive. It focuses on gender responsiveness and quality, pro-poor public services while promoting collaboration among stakeholders, including community organizations and government entities. The aim is to enhance transparency in resource allocation, ultimately leading to better service delivery and improved citizen welfare.
• Climate Justice: This objective seeks to establish a green economy in Kenya led by women, youth, and civil society alliances. It aims to address the negative impacts of climate change while promoting social justice through the development of strong legal frameworks for a fairer just society.

The internet and other digital technologies are critical tools to advance human rights and help address some of society’s most pressing problems. But digital technologies can also be used in ways that curtail rights and deepen inequality. The urgency of protecting and promoting human rights in the digital age cannot be overlooked. Similarly, the centrality of digital spaces and tools for advocacy, campaigns, movement building, mobilization and civic engagement cannot be gainsaid which buttresses the critical intersection of protection of digital rights and safeguarding civic space. 

It is upon this background, that we are implementing the ReCIPE Project: Recentering the Civic Internet through Partner Engagement. ReCIPE aims to cultivate a rights-respecting digital ecosystem that is values-based, human-centric and safe for civil society actors and human rights defenders. The project is built around three main specific objectives that complement each other to help bring about the desired change:

• Increasing collaboration between organizations in the Global South and Global North to create vibrant and safe online civic spaces.
• Improving digital rights mechanisms and policies that hold governments and corporate actors to account.
• Fostering equitable resources for and access to safe and secure online social and political activities for people and communities at risk of digital harm.

The project uses intersectional, feminist, and anti-racist principles to center the experiences, voices, and priorities of at-risk people, especially women and girls, and the organizations supporting them, in digital rights debates at the national, regional, and global levels. The project targets civil society organizations, civic activists, and community members from 10 focus countries that constitute or represent at-risk communities to improve their digital literacy, capacity for influence in decision-making spaces, and ability to partner with other stakeholders on digital rights threats and opportunities. The project also targets tech companies and government authorities to foster the creation and enforcement of effective laws and policies on digital rights.

ReCIPE involves 10 focus countries, which are Bolivia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Kenya, Senegal, Somalia, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Tunisia, Uganda, and Vietnam-between 2024 to 2027. 

For more information and updates on the project, please visit the ReCIPE Project Website: ReCIPE 

Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) for a period of two years (2026 - 2028), the Economic Justice project promotes democratic dialogue for progressive taxation to tackle inequality in Kenya. It strengthens civil society's potential in Kenya and other developing countries to advance public discourse and solutions for improved domestic resource mobilization, economic justice, transparency and financial integrity. 

Through engagement, the project further elevates civil societies' participation in global processes by establishing representation linkages and contributing to multilateral forums for strong public finance and financial integrity, either through direct participation in multilateral processes, or by championing policy ideas and solutions that are in the interest of developing countries on the topics of tax, domestic resource mobilization, transparency and financial integrity.

The project also acknowledges the potential of the media and invests in strengtening capacities of journalists in developing countries to produce stories and engage in investigative journalism that improve transparency and information regarding financial secrecy and justice (tax, corruption and illicit financial flows)

Just Economies is one of four key pillars in Oxfam’s Global Strategic Framework 2020-2030 with Ending Inequality and Reducing Poverty being at the very core of Oxfam’s work. In cognizance of this, Oxfam Kenya is currently implementing a pilot Global Inequality Influencing (GINI) Programme which is advocating for Improved Access to Public Services as a Key Foundation for Reducing Inequality and Enabling Economic Empowerment in Kenya. This Programme, which is being implemented in Kenya, Vietnam, and Columbia, recognizes that high and rising inequality represents a major challenge to Kenya's development. Inequality is fuelled by unequal tax policies, crippling public debt, privatized health and education services, decreased government investment and spending in essential public services which denies impoverished people the opportunity to improve their quality of life or escape poverty. Extreme inequality can create new pockets of poverty and entrench cycles of poverty. Further, it undermines democracy and breeds distrust, crime, instability, political capture, poor governance, and divides citizens. 

The GINI Programme demonstrates how taxation policies, budget making processes, public spending investments, public finance management and public service delivery influence outcomes on economic inequality, growth, and development. Currently, there is lack of a national discourse or progressive policies on inequality in Kenya. The aim of the GINI Programme is to make Reducing Economic Inequality the focus of Government policy interventions. This is a critical moment to agitate for an increased demand against inequality, and champion for improved quality, availability, and accessibility to free public services. The Kenyan Programme is aptly themed From Austerity to Prosperity: Elevating Public Services for All and is being implemented between December 2024 and December 2026 in collaboration with local civil society partners.

The overall objective of the GINI Programme is: To advocate for reduced inequality in access to public services by demanding for prudence, transparency, good governance, inclusion and equity in how the government spends and distributes public resources.

Expected outcomes of the GINI Programme include:

• Increased recognition among citizens and in the political system that extreme levels of economic inequality is a key national problem that requires urgent action.
• Commitment by policymakers to embed targets to reduce the extreme levels of economic inequality in national development plans and policies.
• Inclusive, pro-poor budget allocations and expenditures that prioritize access to quality public services that is freely available to all, funded by highly progressive taxes.
• Enhanced transparency and accountability to reduce elite-capture of public resources.