The Game: The Role of Politics in Good Planning
Think of finance, management, utilities and infrastructure, labour and one thing word that pops up is government. While people are supreme and sovereign, the state is run by political leaders and their goodwill towards development of the country. Think of the bills passed into law that are followed to the latter. The budget is a key reference where money is allocated to the government’s flagship projects and also provides an in-depth analysis where income will be generated from in the next financial year. Think debt, revenue, expenditure, deficits, surplus, while all these can be associated to financial terms, human power can be included.
There are so many roles within the government, with a county being run with over 10 political leaders, when it comes to development of the common citizen ‘mwananchi’, We point out education and access to bursaries, water, good roads, modern markets, levelling up health centres and hospitals among other ‘key’ development projects. But the nitty gritty details that can bring about economic, social and physical development of the region are ignored. There could be bursaries available for sub-standard schools with no desks, neglectful teachers and no books and libraries, good roads that do not even link the town and open up development, upscale markets with no proper supply chains to link farmers to factories and external markets, upgrading a health centre to a hospital with few medical staff, no medicines nor enough beds for patients.
Each County has numerous plans prepared and reviewed annually yet there is little or no progress seen in terms of growth of the County. Plans remain a blueprint that decorate websites and help researchers find data for citations but for how long? A planner is just a planner in Kenya while in developed countries, their role is felt including the diversification of the profession to encourage specialization, expertise and professionalism. While planning lies in the public domain and is actioned by political goodwill, enforcement of planning insights can see the region, the country, the counties and the towns develop economically as well as physically. Imagine a country fully planned for its citizens, where service provision is at par with the number of people in the population and their projected need in future, where the rich and the poor are equally served by the resources allocated by the government. Won’t Kenya be a great country equally mentioned as a best practice case study worldwide? JUST IMAGINE
Read more of our blog posts here and feel free to contact us by clicking here and check out our services page to find out how we can be of help to you.