Devolution Without Disruption

Devolution Without Disruption

Making Devolution Work for Service Delivery in Kenya

Kenya adopted a new Constitution and began the process of devolution in 2010. The new Constitution was the institutional response to longstanding grievances over the centralization of state powers and public sector resources, and regional disparities in service delivery and development outcomes. This radical restructuring of the Kenyan state has three main objectives: decentralizing political power, public sector functions, and public finances; ensuring a more equitable spatial distribution of resources between regions; and promoting more accountable, participatory, and responsive government at all levels. The first elections under the new Constitution were held in 2013. Alongside the national government, 47 new county governments were established. Each county government is made up of a County Executive, headed by an elected Governor and works under the oversight of an elected County Assembly. Seven years after the "devolution train" left the station, this report takes stock of how devolution has affected the delivery of devolved basic services to Kenyan citizens. Whereas devolution was driven by political reform, the ensuing institutions and systems were expected to deliver greater socioeconomic equity through devolved service delivery. The Making Devolution Work for Service Delivery (MDWSD) study is the first major assessment of Kenya’s devolution reform. The study was a jointly coordinated effort by the Government of Kenya and the World Bank. The study provides key messages with respect to what is working, what is not working, and what could work better to enhance service delivery based on the currently available data. It provides an independent assessment of service delivery performance in five sectors, namely health, education, agriculture, urban, and water services and includes an in-depth review of the main pillars of devolved service delivery, namely public financial management, intergovernmental finance, human resource management, politics and accountability.

Devolution and social citizenship in the UK

Most of the expansive literature on social citizenship follows its leading thinker, T. H. Marshall, and talks only about the British state, often referring only to England. But social citizenship rights require taxation, spending, effective public services and politics committed to them. They can only be as strong as politics makes them. That means that the distinctive territorial politics of the UK are reshaping citizenship rights as they reshape policies, obligations and finance across the UK. This timely book explores how changing territorial politics are impacting on social citizenship rights across the UK. The contributors contend that whilst territorial politics have always been major influences in the meaning and scope of social citizenship rights, devolved politics are now increasingly producing different social citizenship rights in different parts of the UK. Moreover, they are doing it in ways that few scholars or policymakers expect or can trace. Drawing on extensive research over the last 10 years, the book brings together leading scholars of devolution and citizenship to chart the connection between the politics of devolution and the meaning of social citizenship in the UK. The first part of the book connects the large, and largely distinct, literatures on citizenship, devolution and the welfare state. The empirical second part identifies the different issues that will shape the future territorial politics of citizenship in the UK: intergovernmental relations and finance; policy divergence; bureaucratic politics; public opinion; and the European Union. It will be welcomed by academics and students in social policy, public policy, citizenship studies, politics and political science.