Kenya End-of-Term Report 2016-2018

Kenya’s second national action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... addressed priority policy areas for reform, such as beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... More, extractives, open contractingA transparent procurement process, known as open contracting, increases competition, improves public service delivery, and ensures governments better value for their money. Technical specifications: C... More, and open budgets. By the end of term, the commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... on beneficial ownership was fully implemented, while the commitments on climate change, legislative openness, and right to informationThe legal right to request information from the government allows the public to follow government decision-making, participate in ensuring better decisions, and hold the government accountable. Techni... were substantially completed and contributed to open government by changing the current government practice. The next national action plan should focus on fewer, more defined goals for each commitment, ensuring clear identification of the implementing officials and the available resources.

Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... End-of-Term Report (2016-2018)

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a voluntary international initiative that aims to secure commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) carries out a review of the activities of each OGP-participating country. This report summarizes the results of the period July 2016 to June 2018 and includes some relevant developments up to September 2018.

The OGP process in Kenya was cochaired between the Office of the Deputy President (ODP) and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Authority, an agency within the Ministry of ICT under the executive branch. The Office of the Deputy President was designated a cochair because the presidency has the legal power to enforce policy changes on other agencies within the government. As a result of this mandate, and broader involvement of stakeholders, the second action plan is more diverse, and the commitments cover a broader spectrum of issues relevant to OGP, implemented by different Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).

The second national action plan had two starred commitments. They resulted in increased transparency by introducing beneficial ownership regulations and disclosure policies and transformation of Kenya’s record management and transparency through seven steps, including passing Right to Information (RTI) legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r... and establishing a central digital repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or ... for government records of public interest. The substantially completed commitments increased citizen involvement in climate change policy, increased access to environmental information to citizens, and increased citizen involvement in law making.

The government did not publish a self-assessment report.

At the time of writing this report, the Office of the Deputy President had published Kenya’s third national action plan for public comment. The draft action plan includes five overarching commitments, three of which address issues carried forward from the second plan (beneficial ownership, open contracting, and public participation). The third action plan addresses open geospatial data for development and building open government resiliency. However, several key stakeholder priority areas are not included, such as climate change, legislative openness, right to information, and anti-corruption measures. One government respondent indicated that the third action plan was drafted in line with Kenya’s development blueprint for the next five years, the Big Four Agenda: food security, affordable housing, manufacturing, and affordable healthcare for all.[1]

Consultation with Civil Society during Implementation

Countries participating in OGP follow a process for consultation during development and implementation of their action plan.

The government of Kenya formed a steering committeeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... to spearhead the development and oversee the implementation of the second action plan. The committee was cochaired by the Office of the Deputy President and the Ministry of ICT, and is comprised of government agencies, four civil society organizations (CSOs), and one private-sector entity. This committee served as Kenya’s multistakeholder forum.

During implementation, members of the steering committee organized themselves into thematic clusters around the specific commitments and their areas of interest, including: climate change, transparency and accountability, legislative openness, anti-corruption, extractives, open contracting, budget transparency, and access to information. The steering committee held regular meetings to take stock of progress with the creation of clear workplans with timelines to track implementation.

The Office of the Deputy President, Article 19, Hivos, and the Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) convened a total of eight meetings[ii] during the two-year implementation period (from January 2018 to August 2018) in Nairobi and Nakuru. These meetings aimed to discuss the progress, implementation needs, and working area commitments of Kenya’s second action plan, as well as consolidating gains and tracking progress of commitment implementation. In general, the meetings featured updates from government representatives on all the commitments and were open to questions and comments from civil society representatives and members of the public. The meetings were interactive and allowed everyone to share their viewpoints. The meetings’ agendas had enough time for questions and answers, and civil society had opportunities to offer feedback on the progress. The invitations, agendas, and minutes for these meetings were circulated via email to selected participants.

Table 2: Consultation during Implementation

Table 3: Level of Public Influence during Implementation

The IRM has adapted the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) “Spectrum of Participation” to apply to OGP.[iii] This spectrum shows the potential level of public influence on the contents of the action plan. In the spirit of OGP, most countries should aspire for “collaborative.”

[1] On 12 December 2017, His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta announced his new plan, the ‘Big Four,’ which will guide the development agenda of the country in the period 2018–2022. It focuses on key basic needs that are critical in uplifting the standard of living of Kenyans on the path to becoming an upper middle-income country by 2030. Prioritized is affordable and decent housing, affordable healthcare, food and nutritional security, and employment creation through manufacturing. For more information, see HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BIG-FOUR AGENDA OF H.E. PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA,” Kenya Private Sector Alliance, 12 Dec. 2017, https://bit.ly/34lxXkw.  

[2] The dates of the eight meetings were: 19 Jan. 2017, 22 Feb. 2017, 23 May 2017, 24 Mar. 2017, 21 Jul. 2017, 10-11 Oct. 2017, 27 Feb. 2018, and 23 Aug. 2018. The IRM researcher attended all eight meetings as an observer.

[3] For more information on the IAP2 spectrum, see:  “IAP2’s Public Participation Spectrum,” International Association for Public Participation, 2014, http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.iap2.org/resource/resmgr/foundations_course/IAP2_P2_Spectrum_FINAL.pdf.