FY2019/20

FIGURE 4.11

Average health sector budget allocations in counties in Kenya, FY2019/20

Construction and rehabilitation facilities, 1.2% Maternal and child health, 6.4% Other programs, 2.2%

Preventive and promotive services, 32.7% Curative services, 57.5%

Source: Office of the Controller of Budget, “Annual County Governments Budget Implementation Review Report for FY2019/20.”

services and investments in each sector are different and need to be allocated and prioritized in different and sector-specific ways to enable effective service delivery. In the absence of such guidance, counties are left to their own devices, without a grounded framework or set of principles for allocating resources within sectors.

In addition, the participatory planning processes required by legislation are only working effectively in a few counties. These processes are subject to capture and multiple parallel processes, leading to contested outcomes (box 4.5), and they are often driven by investment project prioritization rather than service delivery priorities. One cause of this may be that planning and budget documents are not always made readily available to the public. The challenge ahead is to move beyond the establishment of formal processes and toward improving their quality to ensure that they deliver on their underlying intent—which is to ensure that counties deliver quality services in a responsive manner to their residents.

This lack of sector guidance and weaknesses in participatory processes mean that county expenditure allocations across and within sectors and geographical areas vary significantly and appear to be influenced heavily by political and institutional considerations. In the absence of mature political and administrative processes at the county level, as well as sectoral norms and standards to ensure that resources are put to their best use, it is unlikely that county spending decisions will systematically prioritize public resources between and within sectors to put them to their highest use.

Weaknesses in asset and liability management As part of the county planning process, it is important that asset management forms an integral part, but counties have typically not managed their assets well, and the transfer of assets and liabilities remains incomplete. County governments need to strategically plan to create or acquire, develop, operate, maintain, refurbish, and dispose of assets.