Are leaders or legislation the silver bullet for counties to succeed?

What is the state of devolution in Kenya today? Governors argue it has brought politics closer to the people, but critics allege it has simply led to a spiralling of political corruption. For their part, opinion polls tell us citizens continue to support devolution in principle, although many are concerned about the way in which it is playing out in practice. To take stock of these different interpretations and trends, we recently convened a conference on “Strengthening Decentralisation” in collaboration with the Institute for Public Policy and Governance and the Law School of Strathmore University.

The idea was to bring together leading practitioners in decentralisation, both from within Kenya and from around the world, to share new ideas about what makes subnational government work and fail. Our discussions addressed three key questions facing devolution in Kenya today: how can the counties be made financially sustainable? Will counties be able to cope with the process of urbanisation that will take place over the next twenty years? How do we develop a system of decentralisation that is well managed and less corrupt? 

Of course, we could not find all of the answers to all of these questions, but our discussions highlighted the growing financial storm facing county governments, and the importance of both institutional design and innovative leadership to the successful implementation of devolution.

Prof David Sperling opened the conference by asking participants whether, if they could only pick one, they would choose to be governed by good laws or good people. In doing so, he sparked an important debate about how we can build better and more effective political institutions – by designing cleverer constitutions and more ingenious systems of checks and balances, or by finding better leaders.

IMPLEMENTATION PROBLEMS

Since its birth in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, devolution has been racked by problems of implementation. At first, the issue seemed to be one of getting the laws right. Throughout Kenya’s history, there have been flawed attempts to bring power locally and make communities feel included in the country’s direction. Immediately after independence, the majimbo or regionalist constitution that Kadu had campaigned for was quickly dismantled by Jomo Kenyatta’s Kanu, which replaced it with a centralised presidency. Although Daniel arap Moi tried to bring some development locally through the District Focus for Rural Development, this was not nurtured in a way that gave local ownership or empowered decision-making. Instead, Moi used his new initiative to extend central control.

In the face of these challenges, it initially looked like strengthening devolution was really a question of law: what was needed was a set of laws that established a stronger role for local government. And so, in the wake of the 2007/8 post-election violence, the Kenyan people opted for a daring experiment in decentralisation, approving a constitution that created 47 new counties each with their own directly elected senators and governors. Giving a double-lock to these changes, the Constitution also set a minimum threshold of funds that must be transferred to the county level of at least 15 per cent of the budget each year. The Constitution also introduced a number of other requirements relating to political participation at the county level, and a system of checks and balances that included county assemblies and a reformed judiciary.

Are these good laws enough for ensuring the success of devolution? As we considered this question, we heard from experts such as Professor Karuti Kanyinga (University of Nairobi), Marco Kamiya (UN-Habitat), Eva A Maina Ayiera (Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies), and Dr Luis Franceschi (Strathmore Law School). Through their contributions, we came to the view that the many challenges facing devolution’s implementation in Kenya mean that good laws are not enough. Instead, there is a need to attract some of the brightest minds in Kenya back to the counties, to bring back the human capital that can make devolution work on the ground.

OFFICE JOBS

How can this be done? For a start, Nairobi continues to be the place where people think they need to go to get office jobs, even though there are now great opportunities in the county governments. Putting this right demands a change in mindset. If young people continue to leave more rural counties in favour of coming to the biggest cities, the impetus for change and reform in the county governments could be lost.

However, the responsibility should not all be placed on the shoulders of Kenyans entering the workplace. To help attract and keep innovative young employees, counties need to make their headquarters an attractive place to work. We sometimes feel overspending on offices counts as corruption, but there is nothing wrong with investing the amount needed to create productive offices with access to the right kind of information and excellent systems of communication. By improving the working environment at the county level in this way, it will become easier to attract the highly talented Kenyans currently working for PWC, Oracle and Safaricom to return to public service. Doing so will have a doubly positive effect if it infuses county administrations with new skills and a more critical attitude towards clientelistic politics.

However, while we need to go beyond just focusing on designing better laws and institutions, we also need to realise that it is important to make sure that well trained political and bureaucratic leaders are able to work together for the good of the county. A good example of where this has not always been the case is security provision at the county level. It is clear according to the Constitution security is not a devolved function, but instead remains under the purview of national government. Nevertheless, in counties in the northeast and the coast, the effective deployment of security depends on sound relations between the governor and the county commissioner. This is not a question of law only, but of good human conduct. Devolution can help to tackle some of the security challenges that Kenya faces by enabling a more flexible approach to be adopted that takes into account county level variations, but this will only work if governors and county commissioners can find a way to work together. This will require leaders to work together across ethnic and party lines, and to sacrifice their own egos for the sake of their communities. In this way, the successful implementation of devolution across the country depends on good people, not just good laws.

URBANISATION CHALLENGE

Promoting innovative and collaborative leadership will be particularly significant given the growing challenge posed by urbanisation. By 2050, the number of urban dwellers in Africa is estimated to increase from 400 million to 1.26 billion. This is in part driven by natural population growth, and in part by migration. Significantly, although East Africa is currently less urbanised than West Africa and southern Africa, its urban population is growing more quickly. It is often assumed this is mainly a problem for Nairobi, but this is not the case – experts predict 75 per cent of the increase in urban population will be absorbed in intermediate and small sized cities. That means places like Kikuyu, Nakuru, Naivasha and also Bomet, Kilifi and Kericho.

Thus, in addition to performing the tasks set out under the Constitution, counties will need to think about how to manage significant population flows. For more rural counties, this will mean coping with both population loss and the potential movement of large numbers of people within the county from predominantly rural areas to relatively small urban conglomerations. For more urban countries, it is likely to mean finding a way to develop stronger infrastructure and a set of public services capable of responding to a population that will be expanding significantly every year.

This is likely to pose significant problems for county governments for three main reasons. First, although the amount of money counties receive is weighted by population, it is not weighted by likely future population. This means counties will not receive the money they need to respond to population growth until it is too late. Second, counties have many pressing issues facing their current citizens – persuading voters that some of these should take a back seat in order to allow counties to plan for the future is probably politically unfeasible. Third, population growth and migration are precisely the kind of cross-cutting issues that require county and national level leaders to work together – something that has proved a challenge so far, particularly in opposition areas.

One way to overcome some of these challenges is for counties to raise their own funds through local taxes. Expanding taxation at the county level would free up governors to pursue local priorities and also generate the revenue necessary to invest in longer-term projects. Although the opportunities for taxation are limited by both the Constitution and the size of county economies, which is why only a handful of counties raise much in the way of their own revenue at present, population growth will increase land and property values and hence potential tax revenues. However, securing local support for this will require counties to persuade local communities and businessmen that their taxes will be well spent which, as we have seen, means increasing public trust in both the political rules, and their political rulers.

Nic Cheeseman teaches African politics at the University of Oxford in the UK. Twitter: @fromagehomme.

Dominic Burbidge is a researcher of devolution and subnational governments in sub-Saharan Africa at the same institution. Twitter: @dominicburbidge