Influence of Governance on Public Policy Implementation in Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya, the robust policy framework does not compare with the resulting socio-economic development indicators such as economic growth rates, level of unemployment, global and regional ranking on corruption and poverty levels. It seems that policy formulation is not in sync with policy implementation. The World Bank’s “Doing Business Indicators 2018” index, ranks Kenya 80 out of 190 countries, while Transparency International’s index of perceptions on corruption where countries are ranked from the least to most corrupt in the world, Kenya is at position 143 out of 180 countries. There seems to be a gap between policy formulation and policy implementation – the gap between policy and practice. The question is what could be causing the discrepancy between policy and practice? Could governance be the cause of this discrepancy? This study sought to explore the influence of governance on policy implementation in public sector in Kenya. The thesis of this study sought to confirm whether or not the governance gap existed between policy and practice. Prior studies on policy implementation problems have dwelt much more on top-down versus bottom-up approaches and paid little attention on the influence of governance on policy implementation. The study has used principle-agent theory, contract theory, stewardship theory, social contract theory, elite theory, stakeholder theory, theory Y, public choice theory, rational choice theory, incremental theory and kindred theory to explain the relationship of the variables. A descriptive correlation research design was adopted and the target population comprised 20 ministries, 153 parastatals and government agencies. The study adopted a census technique with respect to the unit of analysis which is the public sector. Questionnaires were used as the main data collection instruments and were pretested using a pilot study for validity and reliability. Descriptive and inferential statistics data analysis results were used to reveal the influence of the four governance variables; transparency, accountability, public participation and equity on policy implementation in public sector in Kenya. For this study, hypothesis was tested at 95% confidence level (α = 0.05). The results indicate that the overall model was satisfactory. This means that Transparency, Accountability, Public Participation and Equity variables explain 72.9% of the variations in the Public Policy Implementation in the public sector. It was concluded that Transparency, Accountability, Public Participation and Equity were major determinants of Public Policy Implementation and that they were the major governance factors that mostly affect effective implementation of policy in public institutions in Kenya. The study recommendations included; that public sector should adopt good governance practices in order to improve on policy implementation in the sector; that public institutions should ensure availability and clarity of information provided to the general public about government activity; that the government should have effective mechanisms that obligate public sector entities to the citizens and other stakeholders to account, and be answerable, for their policies, decisions, and actions, particularly in relation to public finances; that the government ought to adhere to the provisions of Kenya Constitution 2010 to give powers of self-governance to the people and enhance the participation of the people in the exercise of the powers of the state and in making decisions affecting them; that the government should ensure that basic needs were provided to all citizenry and that burdens and rewards should not be divergent across the community, and that policy should be directed with impartiality, fairness and justice.