By Anderea Morara
In the 1980s and 90s there was a lot that was written about the Asian Tigers — the small number of countries in the Far East that included Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and South Korea — which registered tremendous economic growth within a few years while other developing countries such as Kenya lagged behind as they laboured to implement the World Bank-sourced structural adjustment programmes (SAPs).
The SAPs were adopted on the expectation that they were the appropriate strategies for development, as they would forestall the economic burden occasioned by bloated public sectors while stimulating economic growth.
However, no strategy was put in place to tame the rampant corruption, nepotism and outright theft of public resources, which was the norm in countries such as Kenya.
As we now know, the economy of, say, South Korea is several times larger than Kenya’s and its citizens enjoy a much higher standard of living from their comparatively large per capita incomes.
In a few years time, our counties are likely to exhibit similar divergences in the levels of development and living standards of their respective residents: some counties will have leaped in their development to very high levels while others will be lagging behind.
Today, I look at governance and management factors that will distinguish tigers from tortoises among our counties.
A number of factors will characterise the counties that are likely to register high rates of social and economic development and substantial improvements in availability and access to services.
Among the key factors is the capacity of the county government to articulate the county development trajectory, to develop appropriate strategies, and to implement them according to plan.
This will require a committed county executive under a governor with excellent leadership skills and a supportive county legislature.
A successful governor will be a visionary person with honesty and integrity that will inspire his executive committee members and other key managers in county government to achieve results beyond what may be expected under contract performance arrangements.
Such a leader will also be a results-oriented team player, who will be able to secure agreement on the county goals, strategies for achieving them as well as the role of each key stakeholder in achieving these.
Harmonisation of interests
With such a leader at the helm, a county will have a clear picture of where it is, where it wants to be after a specified time and how it will get there in terms of the goods and services that will be availed to its residents.
The second major attribute of a successful governor will be the ability to manage change in a county whose managers have had limited operational experience in a devolved system.
As a change champion, the governor in a tiger county will employ strategies that enable officers who have been deployed in the county government from the central government to quickly transform and adapt into the county system, since a divided loyalty among staff may undermine effectiveness in service delivery.
The third attribute will be the governor’s ability to forge harmonious relations with the county assembly whose members will have competing political interests that must be accommodated in the development agenda.
To succeed in this, the Governor must have the necessary skills in negotiation, consensus building and collaboration in diversity.
In addition to the desirable qualities that a Governor must have, the legislature in a tiger county must be supportive of the development process that will be initiated by the county executive.
Its members must be able to see beyond their respective wards and support projects that may be located in wards other than theirs.
For example, industrial parks cannot be built in every ward nor can health facilities be constructed in all wards at the same time.
Finally, a tiger county will be one in which all the key stakeholders are facilitated to participate in the identification and prioritisation of pertinent projects, programmes and activities.
Openness, transparency and accountability in the budget making process will ensure greater ownership of the process and its outputs, and facilitate harmonisation of interests.
It also provides a platform for the county CEO to communicate planned policies and programmes, and to receive effective feedback.
As opposed to the tigers, there will be a number of counties which will realise stunted growth and whose quality of services will generally be below expectations. Such counties will be characterized by any number of the following aspects, among other limitations: they will be operating without clear development plans but with poorly developed and vague goals and blurred strategies.
Acrimonious exchanges
Their governors are likely to be generally lacking in sound leadership skills and unable to inspire confidence from their executive members.
Most likely they will be self-centred, authoritarian, poor team players and of doubtful integrity.
Corruption is likely to be a major determinant of who gets contracts to supply goods and services in tortoise counties. In many cases, the leakages and misallocation of resources will have a major negative impact on a county’s rate of development, leading to stagnation.
Relations with ward representatives will be strained for the most part and may be manifested in acrimonious exchanges and delays during the budget approval and implementation processes.
The above scenarios represent extreme ends in the development spectrum of the 47 counties, the exact position of which will depend on the levels of integrity and management capabilities of the governor and the executive committee members.
The writer is a management consultant at Capacity Development Africa.
