Challenges and Opportunities for Strengthening Intergovernmental Relations in Kenya

The need for quality leadership is critical as the public service faces a range of challenges, some of which include issues of motivation, ethics, systemic challenges as well as capacity limitations. This leadership quality is further weakened by a competitive rather than a complementary relationship between the administrative and political class. Given the above, there is a need to re-energize political and administrative leadership and explore opportunities for alignment. In this regard, ways must be sought to galvanize synergy amongst Intergovernmental Relations-(IGR) role players and continually promote and sustain such liaison. More importantly, the leadership interface sought must be outcome-oriented and must seek to improve the current levels of service delivery. This requires the ability to organize, learn and act with one another to construct more complex social, economic and political relationships which are necessary for development to occur . Leadership, at all spheres of government must, therefore, actively promote strong intergovernmental relations and move beyond “compliance” or a “cosmetic” approach to one that is more result-driven and outcome-oriented.

Secondly, the quality of planning has been less than desirable. Over the past few years, there has been an attempt at institutionalizing the planning activity across spheres of government with the integrated development plans (IDP) and county growth and development plans (CGDP). However, the extent to which both the IDPs and CGDPs strike a balance and help coordinate delivery in terms of attaining the desired outcomes still needs to be seen. The IDPs and CGDPs are plans that contain the strategic goals of the counties as well as those of the municipalities or national government. Over the years, these plans have taken cognizance of the political pronouncements from the president’s state of the nation addresses. These speeches in turn, have borrowed their philosophical stance from the manifesto of their political parties. However, it would appear that, in terms of utilizing these plans as effective management tools, the three spheres of government have struggled to sustain a shared focus. This planning problem has also been complicated by the fact that, in some instances, de-concentration was made without an adequate policy framework.

Thirdly, the inability of “core” departments to service their internal as well as external clients at the implementation phases has led to a complex multi-faceted delivery blockage. Given that some departments play a core (primary) and pivotal role in government’s ability to deliver, every effort should be made to improve their delivery capacity. For instance, with regard to most social services, people require identity documents to be able to access the available services (such as health, housing, child support grant, old age grant and voting rights). This means that the web of IGR that services such “core” departments must be strengthened to ensure an outcome-oriented result. This is critical because the other departments that rely on the core departments may fail in their role if the core departments are not identified and targeted for IGR strengthening. In this regard, political and administrative leadership efforts must seek to address complexities that will unblock the functionality of the “core” departments.

Fourthly, the issue of coordinating and synergizing policies also deserves attention. The ability of leadership to effectively coordinate ad-hoc and existing IGR structures impacts on government delivery. An analysis of the legislative provisions and existing structures of intergovernmental relations, from a coordinating point of view, suggests that much more still needs to be done. In certain instances, the existence of some structures, especially ad-hoc structures, that have been constituted by government to iron out some delivery issues, has been misconstrued as a ploy to witch hunt and therefore resisted because they seem to warrant suspicion on the part of one of the role players involved in a particular activity. In terms of coordination, over the years, the results have been somewhat mixed with citizens, becoming increasingly impatient with the pace of service delivery. As a result of the fragmentation in the delivery approach, vertically and horizontally (both within and across spheres), the task of synergizing remains a huge challenge for the government. Weak coordination has exacerbated the problems of non-compliance, non-adherence to the existing sectoral framework, weaknesses in the oversight function, lack of monitoring and evaluating of progress as well as poor communication. Lastly, there are weaknesses relating to issues of delegation of responsibilities. This has to be thoroughly considered to ensure that the sphere expected to execute an activity has the appropriate capacity to deliver. This suggests that the issues of monitoring and providing remedial support to various stakeholders in the process of delivery have been less than satisfactory and need to be improved. For instance, security is a national competency, but this cannot be delivered directly by the ministry of Interior and national coordination as a standalone. Therefore, the ministry uses the county commissioners as delivery agencies and gives them mandate as well as resources to deliver on the ministry objective. However, this may not be enough; they must continually monitor progress and evaluate readiness of a sphere to deliver, and where possible, render appropriate support to ensure the objective is met. To this end, the issue of delegation (with due consideration of capacity, improving monitoring and providing remedial support to various stakeholders in the process of delivery) is vital.

Conclusion
Poor service delivery is seen as a challenge that can be better managed through a stronger intergovernmental relations system. Ways must be sought to continually promote and sustain liaison with governmental stakeholders. In the promotion of strong intergovernmental relations, attempts must be made to move towards an outcome oriented (purposeful) intergovernmental relations which seek to create opportunities for genuine negotiations and the development as well as sustainability of a shared vision. Without an integration of multi-sectoral, cooperation among the spheres of government and creating the right balance, the tensions that arise in these relationships will continue to create systemic blockages and weaken government’s delivery capacity further.