Why devolution still work in progress over a decade on

It seems the national government has drowned devolution in Kenya. 

The other forces competing with devolution include East Africanism, pan-Africanism, and globalisation. 

The three are too detached from ordinary citizens to be felt. Paradoxically, we hear less about what is happening in the counties than in the US, Syria or Ukraine.

One big question is if ordinary citizens are feeling the real benefits of devolution. Have their standards of living gone up?

We all can reflect on counties’ economic progress since 2010. The Devolution @10 study published by Act Change Transform (Act!) brought out the dreams of the citizens that have not been realised since 2010.

Despite some progress in decentralising governance in the counties, most citizens perceive the efforts as moderately successful due to challenges such as leadership reluctance to relinquish control and political and tribal influences.

Others are resource limitations, resistance to change, lack of civic education, corruption, operational difficulties, and unclear legal frameworks.

While public participation in decision-making is central to devolution, citizens believe, their voices to fully realize the democratic principle of public involvement in governance processes are still being overshadowed by political interests, resource constraints, inadequate civic awareness, ineffective communication, economic burdens, and weak legal frameworks.

Also, while some counties have made strides towards inclusivity, systemic issues such as corruption, nepotism, political patronage, and unclear enforceable policies severely limit the progress of diversity in county public service across the country.

The government has recently been drowning in devolution with national projects such as roads, rails, dams, and universities.

When did you last see a Member of County Assembly (MCA) in the headlines? Citizens feel the national government more than their counties. If you add the Constitution Development Fund (CDF), the counties are drowned.

What are county projects? Why is devolution not gaining traction?  Firstly, the model of devolution was largely borrowed from Nigeria and the US - big countries with vast resources.

The US is multiracial with three layers of government and a population of 330 million.

Nigeria, with over 200 million people, is multiethnic like Kenya with three dominant tribes. But Kenya is multiethnic with no dominant ethnic group (that can be contested).

Was the adopted devolution model contextualised? In countries where devolution has taken root such as Canada

or the US, citizens are closer to state or provincial governments than the national governments, except in national defense or foreign affairs.

Our counties are too small compared with Nigerian or US states. Did we allow politics to drown economics in our race to get a new constitution in 2010?

Do we need an amendment to the constitution without lawyers getting a free hand to shape the destiny of our country?

Can we learn from others? Germany has three levels of government- the federal government; state, or Länder, then counties and municipalities.

The European Committee on regions states - “The Länder” - have exclusive legislative powers concerning culture, education, universities, local authority matters and the police.

However, a new law passed in 2019 coined the “Digital Pact &quot” (Digitalpakt Schule &quot) gives the federal government the right to provide direct financial assistance to municipalities to promote digital infrastructure in schools and thus weakens the exclusive cultural sovereignty of The Länder to some extent.

Another drowning of counties? Agriculture and health are missing in Germany Länders, which have police services, unlike Kenya.

Did we overload our counties? The responsibilities of the Kenyan counties mirror those of the South African provinces and include agriculture and health.

South Africa too has municipalities below provinces. Should Kenya get the municipality layer for faster delivery of services and share the burden with counties?

Would that mean reducing the number of counties to reduce the wage bill? That is a possibility our constitution has no amendment so far. It is time to put lessons of the Devolution @ 10 Report into practice.

Rarely discussed is that devolution suffers from brain drain, the best and brightest are distilled from counties to Nairobi.

Yet the greatest natural resource is not land or oil but brains. How can other counties mimic Nairobi and gain brains?

Even graduates of universities in the counties dream of settling in Nairobi one day. The most progressive states in the US like California are brain gainers.

The US Joint Economic Committee (2019) notes: “States which retain and attract highly-educated adults stand to reap substantial economic benefits. At the same time, those that bleed much of their homegrown talent will see their economic fortunes decline if they fail to replace the leavers with highly educated out-of-staters. Yet even if they do manage to offset their losses, these states are still losing a vital source of social capital.”

Stanford don Rebecca Diamond (2024) puts it more succinctly: “Foreign-born Americans make up around 10 per cent of the population of the United States. Yet, they are responsible for 24 per cent of recent US patents. You find that 36 per cent of all innovation can be attributed to immigrants.”

How can our counties attract immigrants and their brains? The counties that will leapfrog the rest will be net brain gainers. Nairobi is too lonely; who will join it and when?