Building a Better Kenya: From the Foundation Upward. Part 2
Last week we looked at how Kenya needs to introspect more deeply into action-based development rather than promise-based. This week, we look at the second part, which continues to explore how we can achieve our dream of upward growth in a more pragmatic way.
We spoke of corruption, which seems to be a constant in every administration, though the extent varies. Some are more rampant than others. But perhaps the greatest danger to Kenya’s development is not even that corruption itself.
It is the temptation by successive administrations to weaken or subordinate institutions that are supposed to restrain political power. EACC, for instance, is not working to its full extent. This is partly because of a lack of political goodwill.
The Executive must stop treating institutions as obstacles
Often, our government seems to see Parliament, the Judiciary, independent commissions, the media, civil society or oversight agencies as inconveniences. Intentionally or unintentionally, this eventually weakens the very architecture it needs to govern effectively.
Kenya has already witnessed worrying confrontations between government and independent institutions, as well as serious allegations surrounding the handling of protests and dissent. During the 2024 and 2025 protest periods, allegations of excessive force, disappearances and abuses by security agencies generated considerable concern. Credible reports alleged police cover-ups concerning deaths during the protests, while subsequent demonstrations have always produced serious questions about the use of force.
The bitter truth is that this matters beyond politics. This is because Investors seek predictable institutions and businesses need predictable regulation. Citizens need predictable and trustworthy justice. Children’s access to education and patients’ access to healthcare cannot be disrupted by bad politics now and again. This cost is higher than it seems, considering the ripple effects.
A country cannot build a first-world economy while simultaneously weakening the institutional foundations that enable long-term investment and social stability. That is, aptly impossible.
Kenya needs less spectacle and more sequencing
We need to seriously change the national conversation about the future of our country. Kenya does not lack visions but rather sequencing or orderliness.
What comes first? For instance, we want universal healthcare before building sufficiently reliable healthcare administration. We keep talking about the knowledge economy while struggling with educational quality and the transition from school to productive employment.
We want industrialisation while local manufacturers face high costs, regulatory uncertainty, infrastructure weaknesses and competition from cheaper imports.
What of smart cities, while many ordinary urban settlements struggle with drainage, sanitation, housing and reliable public transport? And a digital economy when basic government systems can still be frustratingly inefficient.
We want world-class infrastructure while planning and procurement remain vulnerable to political interests. And our “Singapore dream” of becoming a developed country while tolerating a political culture in which accountability is often negotiated rather than automatic.
This is backwards. Unapologetically. Because development must proceed from the foundations upward. First, we must build competent institutions, then make them reliable, universal and excellent.
That is how countries move forward. This is how nations grow sustainably.
Our priority should be a functional state
In the short to medium-term, what we need as a country is something less glamorous than another grand national promise. We need functionality as a matter of urgency.
A functional healthcare system would be a greater achievement than another political slogan about universal healthcare. A functioning education system would matter more than another curriculum rebranding exercise. A competitive industrial sector would matter more than announcing another investment summit.
I am sure that a properly planned public transport system would matter more to millions of Kenyans than another flagship project. Making the judicial and procurement system more efficient would generate more long-term wealth than a thousand speeches about fighting corruption.
More importantly, an independent Parliament would be a greater contribution to national development than an obedient Parliament that simply passes whatever the Executive places before it.
But get this right: I do not mean Kenya should abandon its long-term ambitions. I am lobbying for the fact that our ambitions must be connected to a credible chain of actions.
The century-long vision needs a five-year discipline
Kenya can have a vision for 2060, 2100 or beyond. In fact, I would urge us to think generationally. And longer-term than 30 years – a century perhaps.
But even that century-long vision will become meaningless if today’s government cannot answer basic questions about the next five years. We need clear answers on the number of teachers that will be properly trained, how many classrooms will be built and the learning outcomes to improve.
We need to clearly know how many healthcare facilities will become functional, and how health financing will be made sustainable.
Much more: which industries will Kenya compete in? What will Kenya manufacture competitively? How will electricity, water, transport and logistics costs be reduced? Which infrastructure projects have the highest economic returns? How much public money will be lost through corruption, and how can that be curtailed?
Even more, how many audit recommendations will actually be implemented? How will Parliament strengthen its oversight? How will independent institutions be protected?
Those are not small questions. They are the building blocks of a developed Kenya.
The Kenyan citizen deserves results, not perpetual promises
There is an increasingly dangerous disconnect between the Kenya politicians describe and the Kenya citizens experience. The Kenyan aristocracy and ‘mama mboga’ see and feel a different Kenya.
The official Kenya is modernising, digitising, industrialising, transforming and becoming globally competitive. Good. What about the everyday Kenya? It is still asking whether the hospital will have medicine, and whether children will get a good education. Kenyan youth are wondering whether there will be jobs after college. The common citizen too wonders whether electricity will be affordable and taxes will be spent responsibly, or even whether the next government will be any different from the last.
Whereas that is the reality, the disconnect cannot be sustained indefinitely. And yes, hope is important in this context. But hope without execution becomes political anaesthesia. When it wears off, and reality check strikes home, it usually gets messy.
The danger of promises is that they make citizens feel that progress is coming, yet they also postpone the difficult decisions required to produce it. Ultimately, Kenyans may, or may have, become accustomed to living in a country of permanent potential.
Maybe we are always about to industrialise, about to reform healthcare, about to eliminate corruption, about to create jobs, about to fix education, about to build world-class infrastructure, about to become great. Always about to be whatever good you may name it, but never quite there.
Kenya does not need a miracle
The good news is that we do not need a miracle to become a prosperous, well-governed and globally competitive country. All we need is discipline. Our leaders must be willing to do boring things properly. We must build institutions that outlive presidents. Parliament must rediscover itself and know that its loyalty is to the Constitution and the people, not to the Executive.
The Executive must understand that independent institutions are not enemies of government but safeguards of legitimate government. Civil servants need to be selected for competence rather than political usefulness.
Procurement systems should make corruption difficult rather than banking on individuals to resist temptation. County governments should deliver services rather than reproduce national political dysfunction at the local level.
Most importantly, we, the citizens, must refuse to measure development by the number of buildings launched, promises made or slogans invented.
The 2010 Constitution already gave Kenya much of the philosophical and institutional architecture required for this journey of transformation. It placed sovereignty in the people and bound state organs to constitutional government. It established economic and social rights and designed devolution to partly bring services closer to citizens and strengthen checks and balances.
The tragedy is that our political leadership has too often treated these principles as aspirations rather than instructions. This mindset needs immediate change.
Hear this: our dream of becoming a first-world country should not be abandoned. It should be rescued from the politics of grand promises.
The road to a developed Kenya is not built first with futuristic visions. It is built with functioning schools, hospitals, courts, Parliament, and municipalities. It is anchored on competitive industries, reliable infrastructure, honest procurement and leaders who are prepared to solve today’s problems before asking citizens to dream about tomorrow.
The real question is therefore not whether we can become a first-world country. Because we can. The harder question is whether our political leaders are prepared to do the ordinary, difficult and often unglamorous work that every successful country has had to do before it became successful.
For Kenya, my lovely country, that work begins with fidelity to the Constitution. And it begins with taking its promises seriously. I mean the constitutional promise(s), not the political ones, especially those empty ones.
