Why Gen Z must demand a reset from sloganeering to Vision 2050

Kenya Vision 2030 Director General  Kenneth Mwige. [Jonah Onyango, Standard

When President Mwai Kibaki took office in 2003, he launched the Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS), shifting national focus from poverty alleviation to wealth creation.

I was privileged to contribute to this shift, working with the Ministry of Planning to establish a Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate. That ERS laid the groundwork for the more ambitious Kenya Vision 2030, a holistic development plan I helped shape.

Today, we stand at another critical juncture. It is time for us to refocus fully on Vision 2030. Gen Z must embrace it as a northern star to guide their lobbying and agitation. They deserve results, as articulated in Vision 2030, not just empty promises.

Kenya’s youth must insist on more than political slogans and glossy manifestos. They must demand bold strategies, transformative policies, and measurable outcomes in every sector. From agriculture and healthcare to trade, tourism, education, and governance. Most importantly, they must know how these outcomes will be achieved and how progress will be measured and reported.

Vision 2030 must engender a culture of results. Development isn’t about abstract hopes. It’s about outcomes that improve lives: better health, more food security, reduced poverty, and increased employment. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Take food poverty. In 2014, 30.7 per cent of Kenyan households reported lacking food or money to buy food. By 2022, this dropped slightly to 28.8 per cent. That’s still unacceptably high. Nearly one in three households. We must aim to reduce that figure to below 10 per cent by 2030, with milestone targets set for every five years. At the county level, similar plans should be in place.

But none of these targets matter if they’re not matched by serious, transparent budgeting. Sadly, most County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) and even some national-level strategies are not tightly linked to their budgets. Too often, we see loosely defined outputs with no connection to real outcomes. This must change. Between 2004 and 2010, I had the privilege of working on multi-million-dollar programmes under the USAID-PEPFAR initiative in Kenya and Uganda. Each funded activity had to prove its contribution to specific outcomes. Budgets were clear, rational, and tied to strategic goals. That’s the level of rigour Kenya needs in national and county budgets. We also need a new conversation about revenue. Counties have become overly dependent on national allocations, while local revenue collection remains uncreative.

We must foster Public-Private Partnerships that allow citizens, from wealthy investors to smallholder farmers, to own shares in development ventures. For example, a national coffee aggregation and marketing initiative could free farmers from intermediaries and boost their earnings, just as Tanzania’s late President Magufuli did with cashew farmers. Procurement reform is non-negotiable. In the US, contracting officers are personally liable for malpractices in procurement. We need similar accountability here. Those who sign contracts must be held responsible when things go wrong. Until that happens, billions will keep leaking through inflated, politicised projects.

Finally, a proper development plan must include Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL). Every five-year development plan should come with a robust MEL framework, not just for formality, but to drive real learning and accountability. Regular data reviews, stakeholder reflection sessions, mid-term reviews, and end-term evaluations must become the norm. Right now, many of these MEL plans are very weak on measures of real change or outcomes, no analyses of change, and no learning loops.

When you hear people say, “devolution has done well,” ask: based on what evidence? Is teen pregnancy falling? Is food poverty declining? Are incomes rising? Are public expenditures tied to real change?

Gen Z, this is your future. Visioning should not be implemented solely by bureaucrats behind closed doors. It should be co-implemented by young people, professionals, farmers, entrepreneurs, and citizens across every sector. Visioning is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. And results-based governance is not a Western idea. It’s a global best practice. If we want Kenya to leap forward, we must make results the language of development. It’s time to ask: what is our collective vision for Kenya in 2050? And what are we doing today to build it?