Devolution in Kenya: Ten years ago, Mandera had to start its journey from scratch

By Mohamed Adan Khalif, Governor, Mandera County

Ten years since devolution began, the people of Mandera can now look back and smile as they count their blessings. And the blessings are many.

During that period, local communities have witnessed year after year of successful essential projects, with huge and tangible positive impacts in their lives. Devolution has also positioned the county for dynamic growth and transformation.

For Mandera, devolution meant starting development from scratch. What with the absence of facilities, offices, personnel, vehicles, and other key resources, and coming at a time inter-clan clashes were at their peak!

Devolution here was a totally new phenomenon, a desirable disruption of the norm, and one that has surely borne fruit.

Mandera falls within Kenya’s North-Eastern region that suffered marginalisation by successive regimes since independence. The journey has therefore been one of resilience and transformation.

The County Government of Mandera has since heavily invested in health, education, water supply, peace and stability, roads, and food security, among several other initiatives, besides adequately preparing and responding to disasters.

With the initial literacy levels way below the national average, frequent long dry spells posed by climate change in an expansive territory of 25,798 square-kilometres, compromised by security challenges of tribal clashes and terrorism by Al Shabaab, we remain grateful to the Almighty for seeing us through adversity thus far.

Today, the county has two referral hospitals – in Mandera Municipality and in Elwak – both equipped with ICU and HDU beds. We have saved the people from travelling some 1,200km on torturous roads for specialised treatment in Nairobi. Above all, we have and continue to carry out complex surgeries that nobody would imagine were possible in a place like Mandera.

The Mandera County Government has connected households to water, built community water points, and drilled at least 287 boreholes. To boost climate change mitigation, we have planted and nurtured over 250,000 trees.

Where there were none in 2013, the county now has kilometres of tarmac roads. Of these, at least 24km have been exclusively funded by the County Government. Another 160km was done in partnership with the Kenya National Highways Authority, (KenHa) and Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA). We also have fibre-optic cables in Mandera, and we are looking forward to having an international airport soon.

In education, the County Government has charted fresh paths for the future of young ones. We have invested more than Ksh4.6 billion to improve the education sector, besides building 297 Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) centres. Though not a county function, we have funded construction of colleges, all for purposes of strengthening the capacity of our people, creating access, and encouraging enrolment for tertiary education.

We recently launched ‘Elimu Kwa Wote’ initiative, a free education programme aimed at supporting secondary school learners by allocating Ksh350 million for the 2022/2023 Mandera County Bursary Fund. This fund is specifically designated to cover tuition fees for all students enrolled in the county’s 59 government secondary schools, making education accessible and affordable for all, regardless of their background or financial status. So far, we have issued about Ksh1 billion in bursaries.

Poverty levels have reduced, access to energy increased, and more children engaged in education and development, minimising radicalisation or recruitment of youth by terrorist groups, and desperation among the rest of the populace.

In a nutshell, the future of Mandera is bright. The people of Mandera are happier, more empowered, and have renewed hope that like every other Kenyan, they too can have adequate access to services and can engage in businesses that will grow them and their children.

The fruits of devolution in Kenya are here for all to see, and we can only do better.

More updates about Mandera’s development progress are captured in this downloadable PDF.