What You Need to Know
In 2025, Kenya’s devolution journey marked its twelfth year, showcasing significant advancements in service delivery and local governance. Despite notable successes in technology adoption and education, the health sector faced severe challenges, including strikes and funding gaps. The 9th Devolution Conference highlighted both achievements and the need for reforms to address ongoing issues, unders
Africa-Press – Kenya. In 2025, Kenya’s devolution journey entered its twelfth year with a blend of optimism, hard lessons, and renewed calls for a more citizen-centered approach to governance.
The year underscored significant gains in service delivery, technological innovation, and local development, even as counties continued to grapple with structural weaknesses including chronic underfunding, corruption, stalled reforms, and persistent struggles in key sectors such as health and land administration.
The proceedings and outcomes of the 9th Devolution Conference, held from August 12 -15 in Homa Bay County, served as a national mirror reflecting how far the devolved system has come and how far it still needs to go.
The event brought together more than 10,000 participants from across the country—county leaders, national government representatives, civil society, private sector actors, and international partners—who converged under the theme “For the People, For Prosperity: Devolution as a Catalyst for Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice.”
The forum provided not only a space for review and accountability but also a renewed sense of shared responsibility toward building stronger county governments.
Throughout 2025, several counties stood out for strong performance in technology adoption and revenue modernization.
Makueni County’s partnership with Safaricom to power an end-to-end digital revenue collection system via mobile platforms was widely regarded as one of the most successful own-source revenue models in the country.
By eliminating leakages associated with manual systems, Makueni demonstrated how counties could achieve predictable, transparent cash flows.
Meanwhile, Murang’a and Kiambu expanded the use of automated systems to streamline service delivery, shorten queues, and enhance accountability.
In Kiambu, real-time payment systems reduced revenue loss and simplified compliance for traders, while Murang’a’s digital platforms allowed farmers and self-help groups to access agricultural and licensing services more efficiently.
These innovations collectively highlighted how technology could serve as an equaliser in a devolved system where counties differ widely in capacity and resources.
Counties also recorded tangible progress in education and childhood development. Kiambu County’s investment in modern, well-equipped Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers demonstrated how local governments could meaningfully influence learning outcomes through direct resource allocation.
Across Kenya, county governments continued to invest in infrastructure upgrades, bursary programs, and localized school planning, including community-driven curriculum adjustments in pastoral regions where weather patterns disrupt normal school calendars.
Through these interventions, counties played an increasingly decisive role in ensuring children and adult learners alike benefited from more responsive systems that take local realities into account.
This progression was echoed in the introduction of a model pre-primary school feeding policy at the Devolution Conference, which many governors praised as one of the most transformative social welfare initiatives to emerge from intergovernmental cooperation in recent years.
In agriculture—a cornerstone of devolved governance—counties invested aggressively in subsidized farm inputs and irrigation programs to address food security and improve household incomes.
In regions such as Trans Nzoia, Nandi, and Uasin Gishu, county governments supplied fertilizer, high-yield seed varieties, and lime to counter soil acidity. As a result, yields in some areas improved significantly, with maize productivity in certain counties nearly doubling.
Livestock-producing regions also recorded gains as counties expanded subsidized Artificial Insemination programs to improve cattle genetics and milk yields, while the rehabilitation of cattle dips and the provision of acaricides strengthened animal disease control.
Nakuru County’s livestock improvement program was frequently cited as a model, showcasing how targeted interventions at the local level could lead to measurable economic and social gains.
Even with these successes, 2025 revealed shortcomings that continue to overshadow the potential of Kenya’s devolved system.
The health sector remained the most visible and persistent point of failure, with chronic underfunding, human resource shortages, leadership gaps, and weak governance resulting in crippling industrial actions in several counties. Kiambu witnessed one of the longest doctor strikes in recent years—lasting 151 days—crippling maternity services, emergency care, and referral systems.
Nairobi’s health facilities were similarly paralysed from late February, affecting more than 140 hospitals and dispensaries and pushing pressure onto national referral hospitals.
Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) deputy secretary general Dr. Dennis Miskellah repeatedly emphasized that the core issues went beyond infrastructure.
According to him, the deficits lay in financing, leadership, and poor human resource management. “We currently have a financing gap of Sh50 billion in the health sector. There is also a severe shortfall in the human resource as the counties are not employing and promoting medics as required,” he said.
He further lamented that many healthcare workers had gone for months without pay, were denied promotions, and were frustrated by restrictions on inter-county transfers.
These grievances not only affected service delivery but also undermined morale and trust in county leadership. Strikes spread to Nakuru, Kajiado, Laikipia, Lamu, Meru, Nyamira, Taita Taveta, and Kakamega counties, each triggered by a combination of salary delays, insurance disputes, lack of promotions, and deteriorated working conditions.
Another urgent challenge was the fate of 91 health workers previously contracted under Global Fund programs to manage HIV-TB interventions in counties.
With the Fund’s withdrawal, counties and the Ministry of Health were to absorb these workers for continuity of services, but by 2025 many had gone for over a year without pay.
Kenya Union of Clinical Officers chairman Peterson Wachira criticized counties for leaving these workers in limbo despite their critical role in sustaining essential public health programmes.
These failures in the health sector exposed deeper structural weaknesses in county governance and raised questions about whether the decentralisation of health, though intended to bring services closer to the people, had been accompanied by adequate planning, financing, and accountability mechanisms.
The issue of corruption in devolved units persisted as a multi-sector challenge. In both water and health services, several counties faced allegations of inflated procurement, ghost projects, and misallocation of funds intended for public utilities. Reports at the Devolution Conference suggested that in some counties, boreholes listed as complete were non-existent, while in others, medical supplies were consistently missing or expired.
While the national government, led by President William Ruto, insisted it would not tolerate interference in judicial processes related to graft cases, county watchdog institutions struggled to keep pace with the rising complexity of revenue and procurement systems.
This disconnect weakened public trust and created an uneven landscape where counties with strong internal controls thrived, while others stagnated or regressed.
Land governance, which remains largely centralized despite constitutional aspirations for local management, represented another critical gap in devolution’s performance.
The failure to devolve key land functions—especially titling—continued to hinder meaningful development and contributed to latent conflict risks.
County Land Management Boards, once envisioned as local safeguards against illegal land acquisition, have been abolished, leaving counties with limited authority over land allocation and public land recovery.
Analysts noted that unresolved land grievances, some dating back decades, continue to fuel tensions, undermining devolution’s promise to create equitable and peaceful local governance structures.
The persistence of centralised land control also limits counties’ ability to engage in comprehensive spatial planning, a crucial component of long-term economic growth.
Public participation, though enshrined in law, remained uneven across the country. Many counties continued to hold last-minute, poorly organised budget forums, making participatory decision-making a formality rather than a functional democratic process.
Despite legal requirements for counties to maintain updated websites, several lagged behind on ICT development, leaving significant portions of their citizenry without access to crucial information on budgets, procurement, or public announcements.
The mismatch between legal requirements and technological capacity highlighted a persistent digital divide that complicates efforts to create inclusive, accountable governance structures.
The 9th Devolution Conference provided an opportunity to reflect on these disparities. Council of Governors chair Ahmed Abdullahi of Wajir emphasized that the success stories in health, education, and agriculture demonstrate the potential of devolution when implemented effectively.
He reaffirmed that devolution is not merely an administrative exercise but a constitutional promise to bring power closer to the people, promote territorial equity, protect vulnerable groups, and ensure inclusive development.
Ruto echoed these sentiments, affirming that 14 functions previously under national control had been “defined, grouped and promulgated,” providing clarity where ambiguity had historically created friction.
He pledged to accelerate the transfer of remaining functions and committed to implementing key fiscal laws, including the County Allocation of Revenue Act, 2025 and the County Public Finance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2023, to strengthen county finances and operational autonomy.
The conference’s focus on good governance, human rights, and financing for equity underscored the belief that devolution remains a living, evolving system.
The human rights session was especially powerful, cautioning against regression in fundamental freedoms and calling for broader participation of youth, women, people with disabilities, and minority groups in county decision-making.
Delegates stressed that inclusion is not an abstract ideal but a practical necessity for achieving stability, fairness, and long-term prosperity.
As 2025 drew to a close, the overall picture of devolution in Kenya was one of undeniable progress tempered by systemic problems that continue to impede the full realization of the 2010 constitutional vision.
Counties were able to bring public services closer to citizens, create new economic opportunities, and deliver infrastructure that would likely not have emerged under a centralized system.
Technological advancements expanded revenue bases and increased efficiency. Educational and agricultural programs empowered communities and enhanced resilience.
Yet persistent corruption, mismanagement in the health sector, gaps in human resource planning, delays in fund disbursement, weak public participation, and the lingering centralization of land functions served as reminders that decentralization alone does not guarantee effective governance.
In many ways, Kenya’s devolution project in 2025 offered a profound lesson: the promise of local governance can only be realized through genuine political will, accountable institutions, informed citizen engagement, and a consistent commitment to equity.
The year demonstrated that progress is possible—and in some counties, remarkable—but sustaining and equalizing these gains across all 47 counties will require deeper reforms, stronger oversight, and an unwavering commitment to the spirit and letter of the constitution.
Devolution remains one of Kenya’s most ambitious democratic experiments, and as 2025 showed, its success ultimately depends on how well the country protects its gains and confronts its failures.
Devolution in Kenya was established in 2010 with the aim of decentralizing power and resources to enhance local governance and service delivery. This constitutional change aimed to empower counties, promote equity, and ensure that citizens have a greater say in their governance. Over the years, counties have made strides in various sectors, but challenges such as corruption, underfunding, and inefficiencies have persisted, raising questions about the effectiveness of the devolved system.
The 9th Devolution Conference in 2025 served as a critical platform for stakeholders to assess the progress made since devolution began. It brought together leaders from various sectors to discuss successes
