Kenya’s devolution was never meant to be merely a transfer of power from Nairobi to county headquarters. It was intended to bring government closer to the people and make public services more responsive to local needs. Yet more than a decade into devolution, one question remains fundamental: Who decides what a county government should deliver, and who determines whether it has delivered?
The answer should be the citizens.
Kenya already has the legal architecture for public participation. The County Governments Act requires counties to involve citizens in planning, budgeting, policy formulation and performance management. County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) are required to contain clear goals, implementation plans, outcomes, monitoring mechanisms and performance indicators. The problem, therefore, is not necessarily the absence of a legal framework. The problem is that citizen participation too often ends with attendance at a public forum rather than continuing into the measurement of results.
This is where the idea of Citizen County Political Charters becomes important.
A Citizen County Political Charter would be a publicly developed performance agreement between the people of a county and the political leadership seeking to govern it. Before elections, citizens would identify the most important problems in their county, agree on measurable priorities and require candidates for governor and the county assembly to commit to specific targets. After elections, those commitments would become the basis upon which citizens evaluate the government.
The concept would fundamentally change county politics. Instead of campaigns being dominated by personalities, ethnic calculations, political parties, promises and slogans, candidates would be forced to answer a more practical question: What exactly will you deliver, by when, at what cost and how will citizens know whether you have succeeded?
A county charter should begin with the realities of the particular county. Every county has different economic strengths, geographical challenges and development priorities. In one county, water may be the greatest concern. In another, healthcare may be the defining issue. A third may require urgent investment in agriculture, markets, roads, tourism, industrialisation or urban management. Citizens should not wait for politicians to decide what matters to them. They should establish their priorities and demand political commitments around them.
The charter could therefore contain between 10 and 15 measurable citizen priorities. These should not be vague promises such as “improve healthcare” or “create employment.” They should be measurable commitments. For example: reduce average waiting time in county hospitals; increase the availability of essential medicines; expand access to clean water; improve the condition of county roads; increase agricultural extension services; reduce youth unemployment through measurable economic programmes; improve revenue collection without unnecessary harassment of businesses; and publish county procurement and project information in accessible formats.
The difference between a conventional political manifesto and a Citizen County Charter is accountability. A manifesto belongs to the politician. A charter belongs to the citizens.
The citizens should also determine the indicators by which performance will be judged. If a governor promises to improve healthcare, citizens should ask: By how much? By when? In which facilities? Using what resources? If the promise is to improve roads, the charter should identify the roads, kilometres, expected completion dates and quality standards. If the promise is to create jobs, citizens should demand a definition of what constitutes a job, how many are expected, in which sectors and through what programmes.
This approach is entirely consistent with Kenya’s existing legal framework. The law already requires county plans to contain input, output and outcome indicators, including access to basic services, capital expenditure performance and jobs created through local economic development initiatives. The missing ingredient is stronger citizen ownership of those indicators.
A Citizen County Charter should therefore not replace the CIDP. It should translate the CIDP into a citizen-friendly political accountability document. The CIDP is a statutory planning instrument. The citizen charter would become the public scorecard against which political promises and actual performance are compared.
The process should begin before elections.
Civil society organisations, professional associations, business groups, youth organisations, religious institutions, farmers, women’s organisations, people with disabilities, academia and ordinary residents should convene county-level citizen assemblies. These forums would identify the county’s most urgent challenges and develop a concise list of priorities. The process should deliberately avoid becoming a platform for political parties or individual candidates. Its purpose would be to establish what citizens want from whoever wins.
Candidates should then be invited to sign the charter publicly.
Signing should not be treated as a ceremonial political event. Candidates should be required to indicate which commitments they accept, the targets they intend to achieve and the resources or policies they would use to achieve them. Where a candidate disagrees with a particular priority, that disagreement should be public. Citizens would then have a clearer basis for deciding whom to elect.
After the election, the charter should remain alive.
Every county government should publish an annual citizen performance report showing the status of each commitment: achieved, on track, delayed, abandoned or not achieved. The evidence should be available to the public. Citizens should be able to see the budget allocated, expenditure incurred, projects completed, beneficiaries reached and outcomes achieved.
This is not an unrealistic demand. Kenya’s county performance management framework already recognises objective, measurable and time-bound indicators, annual performance reports, citizen participation in evaluation and public sharing of performance progress. Public participation guidelines similarly recognise that citizens should participate in tracking the implementation of county programmes and have access to information necessary to monitor results.
What is needed is to make this practice more visible, systematic and citizen-driven.
The most important change would be cultural. Kenyans have become accustomed to asking politicians what they will do during election campaigns. They should become equally accustomed to asking them what they have done after elections.
That requires moving from promise politics to measurement politics.
A governor should not receive political credit simply because a road has been launched. The question should be whether the road was completed, whether it meets the required standard, how much it cost and whether it solved the problem it was intended to solve. A hospital should not be judged by the size of its building or the number of photographs taken during its opening. It should be judged by staffing, medicines, waiting times, equipment, patient experience and health outcomes.
The same principle should apply to every county department.
Citizens should ultimately be able to ask five simple questions: What was promised? What was budgeted? What was implemented? What was achieved? What remains unfinished?
Those five questions could transform county accountability.
County assemblies also have a critical role. They are constitutionally required to facilitate public participation in their legislative and other business. They should therefore become stronger institutions of public scrutiny rather than merely political arenas. County assemblies should use citizen charter indicators when scrutinising budgets, departmental performance and annual reports.
The charter could also become a powerful tool for distinguishing genuine development from political theatre. Counties spend enormous amounts of public money, yet citizens frequently encounter projects without knowing their cost, purpose, contractor, completion date or expected benefit. A citizen charter should require every major commitment to have a publicly accessible trail from promise to budget to implementation to outcome.
Technology can make this easier. Counties could maintain online performance dashboards, while citizens without internet access could obtain information through ward offices, notice boards, public meetings, radio and other accessible channels. The law already recognises ICT platforms, town halls, budget fora and citizen fora as mechanisms through which county participation can take place.
There is, however, one important caution. Citizen charters must not become another political document that disappears after elections. Their credibility will depend on independence, evidence and continuity. The institutions coordinating them must not be captured by candidates, political parties or county administrations. Performance assessments should rely on verifiable data, publicly available documents, field inspections and citizen experience.
Ultimately, devolution should produce more than 47 county governments. It should produce 47 systems of accountable local government.
The Citizen County Political Charter offers a practical way of moving in that direction. It would give citizens a direct role in defining priorities before elections, demanding commitments from candidates, monitoring implementation after elections and measuring outcomes throughout the term.
The most important political question in a county should no longer be simply who is our governor?
It should be: What did we agree the governor would deliver, and what evidence do we have that it has been delivered?