PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 9 What happened to participatory planning in Kenya's arid and semi-arid land?

In Kenya, the idea of participatory planning is certainly not new. References to the concept have recurred repeatedly in planning documents since the early 1960s. It is necessary to ask why a practice which is so widely recommended is so rarely applied. One must conclude, at least in the context of Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands’ development programme, that both donors and government find participatory planning and implementation administratively inconvenient, even impracticable. In order to explain why, it is necessary to consider the framework for implementation in some detail.