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What is a County Annual Development Plan (ADP) in Kenya?

  • Author Gĩthĩnji
  • Updated on:

The County Annual Development Plan (ADP) is an annual document that the County Executive Committee Member (CECM) in charge of Planning shall prepare.

Section 126 of the Public Finance Management Act provides for the County Annual Development Plan (ADP). An Act of Parliament is a form of legislation passed by both houses of Parliament (Senate and National Assembly) to create a new law or to change existing law.

The County Annual Development Plan is based on the five-year County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP). The County Annual Development Plan is a single year extract of the CIDP.

The Couty Executive Committee member in charge of Finance and Planning shall table the County Annual Development Plan (ADP) before the County Assembly by the 1st of September of each year.

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) Kenya has a guide entitled “Kenya: 7 Key Questions About Your County Annual Development Plan”. This guide helps you to analyse a County Annual Development Plan (ADP).

The County Annual Development Plan definition is the single year extract from the County Integrated Development Plan allowing for updates responding to current emerging issues in the economy.

There is no legal obligation for these two plans to match, but logically, the CIDP being a 5-year plan shall guide the annual plans.

The IBP guide says further that-

This becomes the basis for the annual budget. Remember, the County Government Act, 2012 provides that no funds shall be appropriated in the budget unless provided for in a plan. So, if we want to know what to look for in the budget, we shall be starting ideally with the CIDP, then the Annual Plan, and then the budget estimates.

The guide goes on to say that an annual development plan answers the question “what are we going to do this year to advance the overall 5-year county plan (CIDP)?” The guide uses the Baringo County Annual Development for the year 2017/2018 as an example to understand the analysis.

Some terms used in the Annual Development Plan (ADP) are (as defined by the guide):

  • Recurrent expenditure: Expenditure that does not result in the acquisition of long-term assets. It consists mainly of expenditure on salaries, goods, and services, maintenance, etc.
  • Development (capital) expenditure: Funds spent for the acquisition of a long-term asset; the total spending on such asset sometimes have to spread across several years. This includes expenditure on equipment, land, buildings, legal expenses, and other transfer costs associated with property.
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How to Analyse your County Annual Development Plan (ADP)

To analyse a County Annual Development Plan (ADP), the guide by IBP uses a set of seven key guiding questions on how to understand the Annual Development Plan. This article presents a summary of the guide. The questions are as follows:

  • Does the ADP identify priorities within the sector? – The Annual Development Plan (ADP) shall provide strategic priorities that will guide the process of identifying and prioritizing the programs of the county.
  • Does the ADP identify the programmes within the sector? – An ADP shall show priorities organized under programmes in the same format as the county’s programme based budget.
  • Does the ADP provide information on significant capital projects? – An ADP shall give details of capital (development) projects that will be undertaken in the coming financial year. This includes details of individual projects, location of the projects, status (ongoing, new, etc.), completion timelines, source of funding and the proposed costs for the projects.
  • Does the ADP indicate where the projects were derived from? – Possible sources of projects for an ADP include proposals from public participation, projects identified in the CIDP and projects derived from sector plans. This shall be supported by reliable and accurate data as well as research and feasibility studies.
  • Does the ADP provide performance targets for programmes or projects and/or indicators of success or impact? – An ADP shall show priorities organized under sectors and programmes. The programmes shall include a select set of performance indicators and targets (not more than a few for any programme) that can be used for tracking transition in the budget estimates but also implementation if they are approved in the budget.
  • Is there information on how the public was involved in the formulation of the ADP? – The public shall participate and have a say in the priorities in the ADP. Therefore, the ADP shall indicate if there was public participation, provide a detailed breakdown of priorities shared by the public, and indicate to what extent those priorities were adopted.
  • What additional information do you need to inform the next stages in the budget cycle that are not provided in the ADP? – Since the ADP is a planning document, it shall inform the rest of the formulation stage of the budget. This includes the preparation of the County Budget Review and Outlook Paper, the County Fiscal Strategy Paper and the annual budget estimates.

For more detailed information on how to analyse a County Annual Development Plan (ADP), download the IBP Guide on ADP.

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