President William Ruto, on Thursday and Friday, presided over the Third Retreat and Mid-Term Review for the Cabinet and senior ranks of the Executive at the KCB Leadership Centre in Karen.
During the engagement, President Ruto identified several systemic risks that were constraining the effective delivery of government services.
They include;
- Geopolitical realignments, conflicts, tensions, and climate shocks.
- Financial risks arising from budget shortfalls and counterpart funding gaps for programs supported by development partners.
- Weak monitoring and evaluation systems.
- Weak vertical and horizontal collaborative governance.
- Silo approach in implementation of Government initiatives.
- Litigation, legal and bureaucratic bottlenecks.
- Indiscipline in project and program execution.
- Technological disruptions and cybersecurity.
- Misinformation, disinformation, and battle of narratives.
- Weaponization of legitimate concerns into violent agitations.
Having identified the challenges, the retreat resolved to strengthen government service delivery in order to enhance the administration’s delivery and deepen the confidence of the people in its ability to deliver on their needs and expectations.
This will be achieved through:
Reimagining the strategic vision for stimulating economic growth and job creation, defining pathways for Charting the Way Ahead through Whole of Government Approach.
Maintaining high foreign exchange reserves by stimulating export growth and reducing non-essential imports.
Improving the quality of data on all agricultural sub-sectors to inform evidence-based interventions that will consolidate and sustain the gains achieved in production, incomes and jobs.
Accelerating off-take of farmers produce to put more money in the farmers’ pockets.
Upscaling teacher recruitment to support the drive towards an optimal teacher-learner ratio as well as continue effective implementation of the Competence-Based Education and Training.
Building laboratories and other essential facilities to upgrade all schools to enable them offer high quality education.
Finetuning the new funding model for universities by streamlining and enriching the mean testing instrument to ensure every student is placed in the right band and avoid disenfranchisement of any student.
Registering every Kenyan and their dependents on the Social Health Insurance scheme to ensure every Kenyan enjoys radiant health that will ensure optimal contribution to nation building.
Rolling out supply and installation of modern medical equipment on different financing framework with counties and suppliers.
Completing reforms of the Kenya Medical Supply Agency (KEMSA) in accordance with the framework agreed upon between the National and County governments.
Scaling Up Digitization of all Government services by ensuring all MDAs are onboarded on the e-Citizen platform, to further improve efficiency in public service delivery.
Completing construction of ICT Hubs across the country and procurement of computers to run the hubs, embracing the Whole of Government approach in procuring the computers, including local manufacture option.
Migrating all hustlers into the credit worthiness bracket through financial inclusion options available from the hustler fund framework.
Scaling Up the Affordable Housing Program to move up the construction sector value chain.
Accelerating labour mobility coordination by signing up more Business Level Agreements and scale up those that were signed before by renegotiating them to engage more professional workforce.
Training more Kenyan youth on several foreign languages to improve their competitiveness for global jobs.
Expanding capacities in special economic zones and explore new markets for Kenya’s products.
Deepening inter-governmental collaboration.
Securing bilateral partnerships that respond to transformation agenda and create mechanisms for protecting the interests of Kenyans in conflict regions.
Deepening stakeholder engagement at different levels.
Streamlining vertical and horizontal collaborative governance.