KENYA'S URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY
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Local government in Kenya: poor planning, low participation, great potential
Released: Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century- The Call for Innovative Initiatives from Local Authorities
Nairobi, 4 November 2011 – The new publication Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century - The Call for Innovative Initiatives from Local Authorities of Development Trust Innovation Africa (DTIA) and African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) analyzes the development role of local government in a perspective of a new system of devolved government to take effect in 2012. The publication demonstrates that the practical implication of devolution is that local authorities will be at the forefront of the development agenda. Kenya is among the first countries in Africa to give way to decentralization of government authority, with fundamental powers on taxation and spending given to counties.
Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century is the result of five years of research activities. In municipal councils in Kenya, urban environment development plans are drawn up but not followed. In rural councils, environment development plans are not made at all and there development happens without guidance. The evolution of local authorities in Kenya has consistently narrowed down to the role of provision of permits, public sanitation and zoning. Informality is suppressed and tolerated at the same time. Access to information and the style of democratic interaction do not really allow meaningful citizen participation.
Reforms in over-drive
The central government had set in motion a local government reform process that went into over-drive during the past decade. One outcome of this is that local authorities have started implementing programmes of small-scale community projects. The projects are prioritized at community level and are mostly building school classrooms, water facilities, healthcare dispensaries, public markets or feeder roads. Although public participation has been limited, the mechanism has demonstrated that devolved funds can be applied in ways relevant to communities. Another outcome of reforms is mainstreaming of Information and Communication Technology in local government, with promising results.
However, Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century also shows that centralized management of local government has reached the limits of its effectiveness. Despite improvements, there is no local authority that is able to effectively deliver the basic services of sanitation, physical planning, maintenance of roads and markets. It does not help that the budgets available to local authorities are small, from insignificant in a rural county council to meager in a city. A rural county council has at its disposal a budget of around Ksh 400 per head of the population; a town council Ksh 1,200 and a municipal or city council Ksh 2,800 (rate of exchange USD/KES=100). In these budgets, costs of democratic representation are big. Rural councils spend no less than 17% of their budgets on their councillors; city councils 4%. In contrast, local authorities in high-income countries in Asia or Europe have budgets of a factor 200 - 300 higher than in Kenya. They use public-private partnerships (PPP) to leverage their capacity to deliver. Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century provides details and suggestions on how PPP may work in Kenya’s local authorities.
County Caucuses
The analysis of the functioning of Kenya’s local authorities serves as a pre-view on the much anticipated new system of devolved government. The recent forum “Developing our Region in a Devolved Government System” (30 September 2011, Eldoret, North Rift Valley, Kenya) was part of the process of preparing the publication. This forum highlighted key focus areas in preparation for devolution. Awareness must be strengthened as local stakeholders cannot afford to be unprepared to assume their roles in the new governance and development management dispensation. Leadership must be made answerable to local stakeholders whose role is to put forward their local development priorities, rather than wait for solutions and initiatives designed and implemented elsewhere. New opportunities should arise for ward-level development, with better utilization of in-county resources and a reduced reliance on the national treasury. Planning needs drastic improvement at all levels. Land is one of the region’s most conspicuous assets and must be managed better, especially avoiding continuing subdivisions of family land and land speculation. Stakeholder participation in planning must improve, to break away from a long standing trend of passivity. An important role is cut out for county caucuses that are emerging everywhere: ideally, a county caucus is all-inclusive, reaches out to all citizens and aims to articulate a development agenda with a specific action plan.
DTIA and ACTS
Development Trust Innovation Africa (DTIA) has a history of activities in local government over the past years, with champion councils now leading the way in modernizing operations. Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century documents and reviews the situation of local government in Kenya with many examples, case studies and suggestions for development. The authors Marcel C Werner (Development Trust Innovation Africa, www.dtia.or.ke), Viola A Otieno (Flametree Systems, www.flametree-systems.co.ke) and Prof. Judi W Wakhungu (African Centre for Technology Studies, www.acts.or.ke) are active in engineering and research in a broad range of development themes.
Kenya's Urban Development in the 21st Century - The Call for Innovative Initiatives from Local Authorities. 120 pages, fully illustrated (photography, maps, facsimile), references. First edition November 2011. ISBN: 9966-41-159-3. Published jointly by: Development Trust Innovation Africa (DTIA) and African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), Kenya 2011. Contents: 1. Public Policy 2000 – 2011 / Quality Cities; PPP; 2. ICT as a Policy Agenda; 3. Evolution of Local Government in Kenya; 4. ICT in Local Government: Pre-condition for Progress; 5. Chaos, Planning and Management; 6. Case Studies Nakuru, Makueni, Eldoret/Wareng, Ruiru, Taveta.
More information about the publication
DTIA
P.O. Box 59948-00100 GPO
Nairobi, Kenya
www.dtia.or.ke
info@innovation-africa.or.ke
ACTS
P.O. Box 45917-00100 GPO
Nairobi, Kenya
www.acts.or.ke
H.Maganga@acts.or.ke
