Speech by Dr James Mwangi, Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Board Chairman, at the Vision 2030 10th Anniversary Media Launch

SPEECH DELIVERED BY DR. JAMES MWANGI CHAIRMAN KENYA VISION 2030 DELIVERY BOARD, DURING THE VISION 2030 TENTH ANNIVERSARY MEDIA LAUNCH ON MAY 30, 2018 HELD AT WHITESANDS HOTEL MOMBASA.

Members of the press,
Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning,

I am happy to join you for yet another engagement that aims at facilitating the attainment of our national development plan, the Vision 2030.

It’s a timely moment to take stock of the vision in relation to the economy. The month of June marks the tenth anniversary since the implementation of the Vision 2030 in 2008. In retrospect,

• The Vision 2030 is Kenya’s sole developmental policy that transcends any government and must be owned by Kenyans of all cultures, races, religions and geographical locations – the passing of Sessional Paper No. 10 of 2012 anchored Vision 2030 as the country’s guiding economic and national development policy framework and ensure that it is sustained up to 2030 in line with the constitution.
• It is constructed on three main pillars-the Social, Economic and Political-and an anchored the Enablers, which covers those projects, interventions and initiatives for whose impact ultimately cuts across all the other three pillars.
• The adoption of the vision by Kenya came after the successful implementation of the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation (ERS) which saw the country’s economic fortunes back on path to rapid growth since 2002 – GDP grew from a low 0.6% to 6.1% in 2006.

Progress and impact to the economy 10 years later:

For the last decade, despite Kenya’s economy being affected by multiple adverse domestic (post-election violence and drought) and external (global financial crisis and high oil and commodity prices) shocks at the initial stages of implementation of the Kenya Vision 2030 economic development blueprint, significant progress was witnessed as outlined through employment creation, increased revenue collection, New Constitution, infrastructure, energy, land reforms, public sector reforms, manufacturing, health, education and training, Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
While the last decade of Vision 2030 execution has been challenging, there is proof that long-term planning has contributed positively to sound economic policymaking, and ultimately to growth.

• In 2015, Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was recalculated to about US$ 53 billion in 2013 thus placing Kenya as middle income economy and among the biggest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Significantly, the Vision 2030 has managed to create the fundamentals necessary to stabilize the economy. For instance, we have dealt with our country’s politics and leadership selection with a tested and proven electoral system, established a legal framework sufficiently robust to deal with issues; a judicial system independent and able to mete predictable justice, a devolved government separated from judiciary, legislature and executive.

By merely getting those fundamentals right, we have created an enabling environment for the private sector to roll out on its own as a result of a mutual cooperation with the Government development objectives.

• We have evidently seen Kenya’s competitiveness position in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) Report improve for the third consecutive year, incredibly cementing its status as among the most improved African and sub-Sahara country on the GCI top 100 rankings.
• In the last 10 years, numerous international companies relocated their headquarters from other countries to Nairobi – including NOKIA; General Electric, IBM, Standard Chartered, Microsoft, United Nations among others – an immediate response of the low lying fruits of Vision 2030.
• In the last 4 years alone, investment levels in Kenya have since risen from $390m in 2013 to nearly $2bn in 2016, with 1,532 companies registering in Kenya over the same period.

On infrastructure, Kenya has been able to strengthen the framework for infrastructure development thereby accelerating the speed of project completion, raise efficiency and quality of infrastructure projects and with globally acceptable performance standards targeting to enhance customer satisfaction. To name but just a few;

• Like all developed civilizations, Kenya is taking the right step in developing a railway network to open up its economy to intra-regional trade cost efficiently. With time, the standard gauge railway will demonstrate the impact to this country.
• Out of the 164,000km of roads in the country, 13,000km have been paved. The Government, is on course to pave another 10,000km, of which 80 per cent will be rural and 20 per cent will be urban roads.
• Projects under energy generation, transmission and distribution have equally been a success. The interconnected system in Kenya had a total effective capacity of 2,298MW as at October 2015 with suppressed peak power demand of 1,763MW recorded in October 2014. National electrification is approximately 33 per cent.

1. Under the rural electrification program, over 2,200,000 new customers were connected against a target of 1,000,000.
2. The last mile connectivity has seen electricity connection charges reduced from Sh. 35,000 to Sh. 15,000 per home

In the Social Pillar, progress within each sector has been dependent on various factors that generally influence the implementation of flagship projects. To name but a few;

• Kenya has invested massively expanding healthcare infrastructure; healthcare delivery in the management and treatment of pediatric cases, cancer and chronic diseases; improving access to comprehensive services by different constituents of Kenya’s population and medical tourism.
• Facilitation of affordable housing – 200,000 housing units annually.
  Establishment of The Consolidated Social Protection Fund where over 253,000 households with orphans and vulnerable children were provided with cash transfers.
• Promoting financial inclusion and empowerment of women through access to affordable credit; access to the 30 per cent procurement opportunities in Government tenders for women, youth and persons with disability (PWDs) and expansion of access to finances and promote youth, women and PWDs-led enterprises at constituency level.

In the economic pillar, Wholesale and retail trade, tourism, manufacturing and financial services sectors have had mixed success due to various factors. The financial services sector in particular has had major successes such as the deepening of the capital markets. The Nairobi Securities Exchange has also fully demutualized and new counters such as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) and Growth Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS) launched.

I am also proud to note a new facilitative pillar touching the entrenchment of a National Values System has been integrated into national development policy. Through the National Values Pillar, the Kenyan people will believe in, own the Vision, and therefore ensure its successful implementation.

Way Forward

Over the next five years, the government will pursue a national growth strategy through the ‘Big Four Plan’ to deliver accelerated and inclusive economic growth through affordable health care, affordable housing, food security and improved manufacturing which will thrust Kenya forward

While we have made commendable achievements towards realizing the development objectives we have set for ourselves, we nonetheless still have a long way to go in fully realizing our dream ,there is still need to rally the nation behind the Vision 2030 and facilitate implementation of the Third Medium Term Plan by all Government ministries, state agencies and regulators, the Judiciary, Parliament, Independent Commissions, the Private Sector, Bilateral and Multilateral Development Partners, Civil Society and Faith-based Organizations.

Today, therefore, we launch a national campaign to celebrate the Vision 2030 achievements all over the country for the next few months.

With these remarks, I wish to call upon all of you and others not in this forum now, but have Kenya at their hearts, to join the government in the implementation of the vision and its third five year medium term plan. We would like to see Kenya transformed and her people lead better life. Let nobody sit on the fence and point fingers but let us join hands to make the vision a reality. We welcome positive criticism as we move on.

Thank you and God bless you all.