Technical Support to the Local Government Reform Programme

Four-year programme

£3.5 million

Ministry of Local Government (MoLG)

350 staff months of expertise in project management; local government; institutional development and capacity building; decentralisation; public financial management; governance; training and IT.

This project supported the Kenya Local Government Reform Programme’s (KLGRP) efforts to improve public financial management at local government level. Working with central Ministries and Local Authorities (LAs) across the country, this project supported the administrative and fiscal decentralisation of the 175 elected local authorities with a view to promoting improved service delivery and local governance.

The project had five key objectives:

1. Supporting the development of the Government’s decentralisation strategy. Policy advice was provided to the Ministry of Local Government on: decentralisation approached in light of devolution; budgeting reforms and revenue mobilisation; and LA financial performance. Policy guidelines were developed on governance and participatory development and budget performance and submissions were evaluated.
2. Supporting the Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATF) administration. Working with the LATF Secretariat, the TA team ensured transparent and efficient financial management of the LATF. This involved assessing the general and performance conditionality of the LATF; improving the allocation criteria and procedures; refining the computerised management system; ensuring that all submissions were compliant as well as designing, implementing and monitoring other fiscal transfers to Local Governments.
3. Improving the financial management in the MoLG and Local Authorities. The team designed and implemented a replication strategy to roll-out the integrated financial management system (LAIFOMS) to all LAs and monitored and advised on necessary modifications. Through the development and delivery of training and dissemination programmes in support of the roll-out of LAIFOMS the team built the capacity of MoLG and LA staff and ensured the successful continuation of the systems.
4. Provision of policy advice on governance. The team analysed and updated the LAs’ service delivery tools and strategies and supported their appropriate application. A Stakeholder Engagement Strategy for the Local Government sector was developed, piloted and then replicated across all LAs.
5. Supporting the roll-out of Results-Based Management (RBM) in all Local Authorities. Having assessed the readiness of LAs to implement, the team supported the initiation of RBM in all 175 LAs and assisted in conducting performance audits. Support was also provided to the introduction of Service Charters into LAs.

An HTSPE-led consortium provided technical assistance under this EC-funded contract to support the Kenya Local Government Reform Programme.  In addition to the overall project management, the Consortium provided a number of short-term specialists to undertake specific technical studies covering institutional reforms, financial management, service delivery and performance and M&E mechanisms, in support of the five key project objectives.

The services provided included:

• development of Stakeholder Engagement Strategy;
• replication of Results-Based Management in all Local Authorities;
• development and application of service delivery tools and strategies;
• institutional development and capacity building;
• fiscal and administrative decentralisation;
• technical studies;
• training;
• policy advice on decentralisation, PFM, budgeting, governance, participatory approaches;
• financial management; and
• IT systems.