Constituency Development Funds: Scoping Paper

Constituency Development Funds: Scoping Paper

Constituency Development Fund (CDF) schemes are decentralization initiatives that send funds from the central government to each constituency for expenditure on development projects intended to address particular local needs. A key feature of CDF schemes is that members of parliament typically exert a tremendous degree of control over how funds are spent. This scoping paper provides an overview of CDFs: when, where, and how they have emerged worldwide; identifies the key features of CDFs that impact on their performance; outlines the arguments and evidence available for and against CDFs; and investigates the opportunities and possible future research from an advocacy perspective.