Bridging Socioeconomic Barriers for Sustainable Citizen Participation in County Development: Highlights from Chuka Municipality, Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya

The role of Citizen engagement at the County development level is undisputable in Kenya. The paper examines the intrinsic barriers to sustainable Citizen engagement in county development projects in the lens of Chuka municipality. While several obstacles exist, Citizen Participation has been enhanced. Based on mixed research design a sample of 394 respondents was selected through the use of stratified, proportionate, purposive and simple random sampling methods. Data were collected through interviews, Focus Group and Key Informants Interviews. The paper was anchored on the Ladder of Citizen Participation model by Sherry R. Arnstein in 1969. Although an inferential test showed that there was a strong positive and statistically significant relationship between the participation of citizens and the sustainability of the county development projects with the correlation coefficient of 0.623 and p value of less than 0.01. It was also evident that citizen participation is faced with inherent barriers, that if they are not prevented, they could compromise the positive gains achieved. The study found that the obstacles could only be resolved through collective engagement of all citizens in the municipality. It recommends proactive involvement of the process project owners through genuine consensus and dialogue. Keywords: Municipality, Citizen Engagement, Barriers, County, Development