The Council of Governors has welcomed county peer learning towards achieving people-centered governance through a participatory approach to devolution.

The council, through its vice chair Ms. Anne Waiguru, who is also the Governor of Kirinyaga County, endorsed CPRM, a program run by the NEPAD/APRM Kenya Secretariat, during the first governor’s peer learning mission that was held in Wote Town, Makueni County on 27th July.

In her address, Governor Waiguru noted the importance of CPRM and its impact towards service delivery through public participation since the mechanism will enable counties to compare notes on governance strategies, successes, and challenges.

“Each county will develop a plan for implementing priority actions based on public participation mechanism, structures, and practices for effective delivery of services,” she said.

Prof. Kivutha Kibwana, the Governor of Makueni County noted that, even though counties have been learning from each other, it is still important to institutionalize structured peer-to-peer learning among counties.

CPRM IN DEPTH

CPRM is a governance “self-assessment” and peer– review tool for Kenyan counties to share experiences, reinforce best practices, identify deficiencies and assess capacity building needs to foster policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth and sustainable development.

A perception based survey of counties will begin next month and eight counties have been selected for the pilot review.

It is proposed that County Governments conduct self-assessments every first and third year of the election cycle in order to ensure there is sufficient time in-between to implement previous peer-reviews commitments and to avoid fourth and fifth years as this is usually a build-up period towards general elections.