Tupo.Tusikizwe — Community-Led Gender-Responsive Budgeting in Kwale County, Kenya

Tupo.Tusikizwe ('We are here. Listen to us') is a gender-responsive budgeting programme run by the Coalition on Violence Against Women (COVAW) in Kwale County, Kenya, with funding from Voice Global. Running from August 2020 to March 2025 on a grant of €278,606, it trained and organised women, youth and persons with disabilities — including 30 women-led Disabled Persons Organisations — across the sub-counties of Matuga, Msambweni and Lungalunga to scrutinise and influence the county budget cycle.
According to Voice Global's grantee reporting, 32 community-driven proposals were adopted into Kwale County's 2022/2023 budget, women's and persons-with-disabilities' representation in public participation forums rose by 35%, and radio, social media and dialogue campaigns on budget accountability reached over 2.4 million people. COVAW's own account adds that the county government released previously stalled women's, youth's and PWD funds following the advocacy, and that four GBV recovery centres and gender-responsive budgeting priorities were written into Kwale's County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027.
This is a sub-national, civil-society-led model rather than a national government mandate, and its figures come mainly from the funder and implementer's own reporting rather than an independent external evaluation; an end-line evaluation of the project was commissioned via ReliefWeb, but its published findings were not independently located. The scale (one county) and reach (2.4 million people via mass communication, a smaller number directly trained) should be read accordingly.

Read the full analysis: https://covaw.or.ke/tupo-tusikizwe/