| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to establish the challenges facing Nairobi City County
Government in the implementation of devolution strategy. The study adopted a case
study research design since it was focusing on the Nairobi City County alone. The
study used both primary and secondary data. The respondents of the study included
the 10 county executive committee members of the County who are in charge of the
various departments at the County level. Primary data was collected through an
interview guide. The interview guide was validated using content analysis where the
draft was availed to two of the respondents for their critique and input. A final draft
was finally made to be used for data collection. The data collected was analysed using
content analysis. The study findings reveal that the main challenges that face the
implementation of the devolution strategy by the Nairobi City County include the
physical and political environment; the national government and its agencies whose
actions at times contradict actions taken by the Nairobi City County government;
inadequacy of resources both financial and human capital and resistance from both the
Members of City County Assembly, employees, the electorate and the business
community. It was confirmed that the Nairobi City County has the capacity to
successfully implement the devolution strategy subject to a number of requirements
being met. The study revealed that if the Nairobi City County gets access to adequate
resources, then the question of capacity to implement the devolution strategy will not
arise. Currently the capacity to implement the devolution strategy is affected by the
scarcity of resources both financial and human.The possible solutions to the
challenges include more funding by the national government or seeking alternative
means of raising revenue by the Nairobi City County government. Stakeholder
involvement at all levels of implementation will also assist in reducing resistance.
Another possible solution is to educate the members of the County Assembly on the
need to separate politics and development issues in order to enable them understand
the reasons why their support for implementation of the devolution strategy is
significant. The study recommends the Nairobi City County to seek homegrown
solutions to the challenges facing implementation of its devolution strategy.
Development of policies concerning devolution should carefully consider reviewing
the roles of the central government so that conflict of interest can be eliminated. There
should be clear policies governing the implementation of devolution strategy in order
to avoid confusion. Currently the existing policies need to be streamlined to provide
the Nairobi City County government with enough capacity to implement the
devolution strategy successfully. The study also established that there are several
challenges in implementation of the devolution strategy. This implies that most of the
findings agree with those of other researchers on the challenges facing
implementation of devolution strategy. However, there is need for more research on
implementation of the devolution strategy in Kenya since the process is still in
progress. This will assist in providing more knowledge on the challenges facing
Nairobi City County in implementing the devolution strategy. There is need for the
county government to consider addressing these issues comprehensively to make the
process successful. However, some issues were found to be beyond the control of the
Nairobi City County government hence the need for it to navigate around such issues
with the aim of getting alternative solutions that can assist in successful
implementation of the devolution strategy | en_US |
