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Making Devolution Work for Service Delivery in Kenya
TABLE A.1
Functions and responsibilities
Review functional assignments. Clarify service delivery responsibilities of various tiers of government so that funding can follow responsibilities. KEY ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
CONSIDERATIONS
POLICY OPTIONS
While Schedule 4 of the Constitution provides overall normative guidance on the two-tiered distribution of service-delivery responsibilities, in practice there remain ambiguities, overlaps, and contestation over the role of national and county government in some service-delivery functions. There continue to be areas where responsibility for service delivery between national and county governments is not aligned with the constitutional mandates, or where responsibilities are unclear, or disputed. This risks duplication or service-delivery “vacuums,” which may arise when neither national government nor counties assume responsibility for a function for which responsibility is mistakenly assumed to lie elsewhere. It can also lead to conflict between the two tiers of government.
Functional roles and responsibilities in service delivery and associated arrangements for management and financing need to be jointly agreed by national and county governments through consultative processes.
Identify cases where (1) there is a lack of clarity of responsibility (for example, agricultural inputs) and (2) funds are not following functions (for example, in water, agriculture) and focus on resolving those.
Examples of disputes or lack of clarity over functions: Water: In the water sector, county governments have taken ownership of urban water companies, however, responsibility for the urban water infrastructure investment remains disputed. The 2016 Water Act made this the responsibility of national waterworks development agencies, but counties are challenging the constitutionality of this act in the courts. Education: It is not clear who is responsible for training teachers with respect to competence-based curricula. Examples of where financing is not aligned with functional responsibilities: Health: Under the Managed Equipment Scheme, the national government continues to make substantial investments in medical equipment for the counties, and over which counties have little control.
IMPLEMENTATION RESPONSIBILITIES
TIME FRAME
Lead: IGRTC Intergovernmental forums
Next 12 months
Clarify and codify functional responsibilities between counties and national government. Ideally this should be done through intergovernmental forums (see the recommendations on intergovernmental coordination) and endorsed by high-level authorities. Ambiguities, inconsistencies, and disputes over functional assignments should be addressed. This is important to ensure that accountability is clear, to reduce duplication and inefficiency, and to empower the level of government designated as being responsible. The national government and county governments need to work together on drawing up sector service-delivery frameworks to clarify roles and responsibilities, mechanisms for financing service delivery, county management of service delivery (PFM, HR, M&E), and identify joint actions to deal with service delivery issues. They should both set out the key responsibilities of each level, but also highlight the key challenges to improving service delivery. The aim would be to envisage these as joint challenges and identify the joint actions needed to address them. These frameworks should also identify if there is an appropriate role for conditional grants in the sector, and which policy function these might fulfil.
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