The 2nd National Summit of the County Peer Review Mechanism (CPRM) was held today at KICC, Nairobi.
The summit brought together stakeholders from across the 47 counties to discuss and share insights and best practices and also foster collaboration in advancing CPRM initiatives.
The key output of the summit was commitments that the Governors will make regarding implementation of their respective County Programmes of Action (CPoAs).
In a communique at a session moderated by Prof. Olive Mugenda, Member of the CPRM Panel of Eminent Persons, a total of 36 (76 per cent) out of 47 counties represented have come up with recommendations and key outcomes.
CPRM is a voluntary self-assessment and peer-learning programme in Kenya designed to improve county governance and service delivery and involves counties assessing their performance, sharing experiences, and learning from each other to enhance their governance systems and development agenda.
The summit, attended by six Governors acknowledged the enormous contribution in the transformation of Kenya’s governance system but expressed concern over the continued delay of disbursement of equitable share of revenues, terming it as a cross-cutting challenge that requires urgent addressing by the National Treasury.
Furthermore, Stakeholders have emphasised the need for the national government to promptly transfer outstanding devolved functions as per the 4th schedule of the Constitution.
They noted the National Government’s commitment to consider providing conditional grants to reward outstanding service delivery performance for each of the 14 devolved functions as rated by the local citizens and also the proactive action by the National Government in trying to address the youth issues by inviting a continental APRM review.
They also acknowledged that some counties are increasingly diversifying their agricultural production and thus creating new opportunities for agriculture-driven economic growth as well as continuing to generate best practices, which provide further opportunities for cross-learning; a key pillar of the peer-review mechanism.
They, however, acknowledged the cross-cutting weak performance in the control of drugs and pornography across the country and the need for concerted efforts between the counties and the relevant national and state agencies to urgently address the sticky issues under this function.
After today’s summit, 22 counties will now have been peer-reviewed, and the stakeholders noted the National Government’s commitment to enhance budgetary support to the CPRM process to facilitate coverage of the remaining 25 counties and the follow-up of the implementation of the commitments made by the Governors.
Governors Benjamin Cheboi (Baringo), Cecily Mbarire (Embu), Dr. Eric Mutai (Kericho), Rtd. Maj. Dr. Dhadho Godhana (Tana River), Andrew Mwadime (Taita Taveta), and Dr. Irungu Kangata (Muranga), who participated, committed to sustain good performance in the services identified by the citizens as being satisfactory.
They also embraced criticisms from their colleagues and citizens regarding areas requiring improvements in terms of service delivery performance.
Other delegates in attendance were from Nairobi, Muranga, Turkana, Kwale, Kiambu, Samburu, Vihiga, Uasin Gishu, Embu, Kitui, Meru, Laikipia, Mombasa, Kericho, and Isiolo.
County Peer Review Mechanism (CPRM) benefits are geared towards improving governance, enhancing service delivery, knowledge sharing, and collaboration, as well as citizen participation.
By Wangari Ndirangu
