In its first 40 years of self-rule, Kenya, under Founding President Jomo Kenyatta and his successor Daniel Arap Moi, did not have a national economic development
strategy.
Kanu's 40-year rule was characterised by poverty and underdevelopment, skewed allocation of national
resources and embezzlement of public resources, leading to freezing of foreign donations in the early 1990s
That all changed when President Mwai Kibaki bundled Moi and Kanu out of power.
In September 2004, Kibaki, nearly two years after assuming presidency, formed an advisory unit to guide his government on social and economic development policies: the National Economic and Social Council. This council recommended a blueprint with a fixed periodicity.
The first council comprised Cabinet ministers, led by National Planning minister Wycliffe
Oparanya. It also included experts from the private and public sector, as well as academia and civil society.
To achieve his economic transformation agenda, Kibaki sanctioned the
NESC to assess the country’s economic status and guide the country's development.
He tasked the NESC, which he chaired, with
identifying and deliberating policy issues to provide feasible recommendations to the Cabinet.
FOCUS ON INFRASTRUCTURE
After a year in office, the team established that Kenya lacked development goals and most developments were sporadic, largely
unplanned
and untenable.
Between 2006 and 2007, the experts went on benchmarking study tours to learn best practices from the National Economic Action Council of Malaysia and from the Danish Economic Council of Denmark. They established that Kenya needed to have a vision that would inform economic development.
And thus was born the Vision 2030, Kenya's first economic blueprint. The vision was officially launched by Kibaki in June 2008.
The framework puts emphasis on infrastructure development on the economic front, and housing and development, food and water security and supply on the social front.
And eight years later, the Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat says implementing what the experts recommended has brought
changes
and spurred economic growth.
"There is a lot that is being done on the infrastructure side, which is a key determinant of the level of economic activity in a country," director general Julius Muia said.
"Infrastructure is one of the pillars for a country to be competitive, and we have not been doing well in the past because we did not pay enough attention to it."
Muia said previously, railway and road connections, water reticulation and sanitation were not considered as critical areas that needed attention.
But he said focus on infrastructure has led to
building
of bypasses in Nairobi to decongest the city since 2008, which has been achieved, and the ongoing
Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport
[Lapsset] project, which has a potential of opening up two-thirds of the country.
INVESTMENT SPACE
Muia said the Northern corridor, which runs from Mombasa through Nairobi to Malaba and Uganda, contributes over 60 per cent of Kenya's GDP.
"That was planned by the colonial government.
Now we have a chance as Kenya to design and implement our own development corridor,
and Lapsset offers that chance," Muia said.
If you are able to open two thirds of a country's land mass, then you will say mathematically that corridor will increase the available investment space in the country by two time or three times.
"It doesn't matter that the climate is hot. Israel is a desert and there are very many places in the world with bad climate, but once you set up infrastructure and come up with a master-planning of some sort to show what you intend to do, history shows development just follows," Muia said.
"The Lapsset project is the space to watch. It is going to be such a big magnate to growth in our country. We are planning 10 cities along the corridor and Lamu, Isiolo, Moyale are Loyangalani among them."