It is fair to observe that Homa Bay county (County Number 43) has recently gained prominence in the public domain as the “go to” place for major national, regional and local-level events and happenings. We’ve seen the county hosting one national public holiday celebration that was cleverly dovetailed into an earlier, reportedly successful international investment conference.
Through media, we observe a Homa Bay investment and infrastructure mini-boom of sorts; from business set-ups to new roads and recreational facilities. Right on cue, the 9th Devolution Conference (DevCon 2025) took place last week, a mere fortnight short of our 2010 Constitution’s 15th anniversary; right in the middle of devolution’s 2023-2027 “third wave”. To be clear, devolution’s first two waves were 2013-2017 and 2018-2022. We will return to this point.
While observers, especially ordinary Kenyans might view these DevCon events as “jolly jamborees”, they are informed by interesting themes and sub-themes. For this 9th one, the theme is: “For People, For Prosperity – Devolution as a Catalyst for Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice”.
For the record, the DevCon 2025 sub-theme speaks to “Re-engineering County Governments to Accelerate Development and Close the Socio-Economic Divide”.
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It is always interesting that, at national level, it’s the economy we want to re-engineer, but in counties it’s their governments. Isn’t it counties and their socio-economics that we must re-engineer, as the main theme demands?
This might be semantics, and it isn’t a “deal-breaker”, but it is telling how our public sector lens – almost sub-consciously, but always by habit – equates the economy with government, and vice versa. Why do you think we spend more time arguing over county equitable share allocations (“sharing the cake”) than we do debating county economic development (“baking the cake”)?
But I digress. Across the three days of the main conference, there was a rich mix of plenary sessions and side events, with a specific theme for each day. “Good Governance” was the theme for the conference’s official launch day; “Human Rights and Social Justice” was the second day theme and “Financial Equity and Inclusion” themed the conference’s third day.
It should not surprise anyone that an event of the scale of DevCon 2025 is highly choreographed, almost like one of those super-organised rich billionaire wedding events that last for days. This is an issue from previous DevCons – are they celebratory mega-parties or review mega-retreats?
This is not to negate the significance of DevCon 2025, or earlier DevCons. But, is this the place where stakeholders, especially the people, can ask the hard questions concerning devolution?
Let’s assume the answer is “Yes” and consider a couple of angles for DevCon 2025 reflection.
In today’s broad-based moment, let’s start with Item 3 of the MoU between UDA and ODM on “protecting and strengthening devolution” through four commitments. One, (actively) protect devolution from the possibility of clawback of functions (like, say, fights over roads or bursaries).
Two, put more efforts into “devolving all funds allocated to a devolved function” (sic). Since finance follows functions, this was a commitment to transfer (all) devolved functions to counties. Lest we forget, available costing tells us Sh272.2 billion in county functions is still held nationally.
Three, increase the budgetary allocation to counties. Remember, we all observed the untidy jockeying that played out within Parliament in determining the 2025/26 equitable share allocation. Four, ensure timely and predictable disbursement of funds to counties, a perennial bugbear.
On these last two, the World Bank’s May 2025 Public Finance Review, in speaking to our fiscal performance and risks, notes that “a potential fiscal risk arises from a mismatch between the funding allocated to the county governments and their service delivery obligations, which can lead to underfunding of essential services…”
Notwithstanding recent appointment of a five-person committee to guide this MoU, isn’t DevCon 2025 the public space to crystallise these commitments into costed and time-bound action plans? Because devolution is as political as it is econo-fiscal, the answers here must be unequivocal.
This might take us to angles that help better frame the future of our devolution project (which is arguably what DevCon 2025, and all DevCons are ultimately all about). Resource allocation has always been a sticking point, so it is worth revisiting a few data sets shared in a recent column.
The 2014 and 2024 Division of Revenue Acts (DORA) for 2014/15 and 2024/25 fiscal years tell us that total shareable revenue grew by 152 per cent (from Sh1.026 trillion to Sh2.587 trillion). Yet, contrary to expectation, national government share grew faster (175 per cent from Sh800 billion to Sh2.2 trillion) than the county share (71 per cent from Sh226 billion to Sh387 billion).
What’s wrong with this wild picture where national government is growing faster than counties?
Here’s another illustrative data set. Aggregate public spending between 2013/14 and 2024/25 hit roughly Sh31 trillion. Aggregate county equitable share was about Sh3.3 trillion, or 10.6 per cent. Again, what’s wrong with this picture? In essence, past high national government borrowing for spending was effectively a pre-payment of their equitable share of revenue at county expense.
A third data set I shared recently tells us that 77 per cent of public spending in agriculture between 2013/14 and 2023/24 was national, and only 23 per cent was at county level. Equally, public spending in health over that period was split almost equally – 48: 52 – between national and counties. Given that both agriculture and health are devolved functions, what does this tell us? Even for transport (mainly roads but also air, sea, rail), national prevails at 88 per cent of total.
Think of these as the sorts of data sets (and there are many more) that get us to look more closely at our commitment to devolution, beyond mere words, to actual numbers and resources.
There is a third angle for DevCon 2025 reflection. If we think of devolution waves earlier, the first was about institution-building (governmental), the second was infrastructure (government and development partners) and the current third one is – as discussed before – investment and innovation (private sector and government). How far are have we progressed on this pathway?
Which brings us to an unusual angle. We are socialised to see devolution as “counties” or “county governments”. But doesn’t it refer to two levels in a devolved system of government?
In other words, the national level in our devolved system (national government across counties), as well as the county level (county governments within counties). If that’s devolution, when do we also hear from the national level of our devolved system of government at DevCon 2025?
A numbers perspective might help. In BETA/Fourth Medium-Term Plan of Vision 2030, national government’s 2023-2027 investment need is Sh16.1 trillion across Kenya (that is, counties).
In aggregate, all 47 County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) add up to an investment need of Sh5.3 trillion, plus joint national-county projects up to Sh2 trillion. So, in a proper understanding of devolution, isn’t it the Sh23.4 trillion total, not just 5.3 trillion, that we should be looking at?
Now, for the coup de grace! If we combined these last two angles – devolution waves and a proper view of devolution – then, for our current third wave, shouldn’t our equity, inclusion and social justice theme for DevCon 2025 capture an honest take on human welfare and wellbeing outcomes, and not just service delivery outputs, things built and bought as completed activities or resources as inputs? Food for thought for a DevCon 2025 for people; for prosperity.
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By Dennis Kabaara