Agriculture in Kenya: What shapes the policy environment?

From the Executive Summary
The aim of this study is to examine the factors that shape the policy environment in Kenya's agricultural sector. The purpose is to help DFID, all development partners and other stakeholders in the sector to contribute more effectively to agricultural sector reforms and development.

Policy making in Kenya has displayed patrimonial tendencies ever since Independence in 1963. This has influenced agricultural policy processes in five main ways:

• Concentration of decision making powers on the President;
  
• Linkage between ethnicity and agricultural commodities which tend to follow clear geographical clusters;
  
• The quest for rent extraction and patronage to favoured groups or individuals;
  
• An anti-poor bias;
  
• The neglect of evidence in the formulation and implementation of policy.

Within this setting, various phases can be identified where the agricultural policy process was influenced, first, by the attitudes of the political elite to the farming industry and second, by the changing attitudes of donors to the nature of the type of support they were willing to provide.

Several types of policy initiation and formulation processes can be distinguished. A key requirement for implementation of any policy is its approval by key decision makers with influence in the budgetary process. Before 1985 most policies were bureaucratic initiatives. After 1985 policy decisions were shaped increasingly by executive directives from the President. Technocrats involved in agricultural policy formulation felt marginalised because decision making was highly centralised in a small group within the Finance and Planning ministries, who tended to disregard the views of Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) economists. Although there has been considerable technical assistance in the form of training for public sector economists in policy analysis, few now remain in the public service.

Donors had a major involvement in the policy process from the start of the structural adjustment programme (SAP) period in the 1980s. However, various reasons may explain the faltering implementation of SAPs, especially in the agricultural sector, including:

• An inclination for donors to come with solutions to problems that Kenyan decision makers did not acknowledge existed;
  
• A failure by donors to appreciate the local political economy or other local factors;
  
• Poor sequencing of the reforms and absence of structures to support them;
  
• Underestimation by donors of the importance of liaising with those responsible for budget formulation in the Ministry of Finance and those power brokers with access to the key decision makers.

There was no systematic or formalised role for stakeholders from Parliament, the private sector or civil society in the agricultural policy process until the end of the Moi regime. Many executive directives were the result of direct representations to the President from individuals, both in the private and public sectors, or special interest groups. These individuals and groups varied according to the issues involved, but the most influential were usually ethnically related to the President or were those whose support was useful to the Moi regime.

In very recent years there have been several developments, including instances of wider stakeholder consultation, that suggest that the policy process could become more systematic and transparent, with a much larger role for various stakeholders and the eventual development of voice for parliamentarians, the private sector and the poor.

A key issue is whether the political changes associated with the ending of Kanu's monopoly on power and the coming to power of the NARC coalition in 2002 are likely (a) to increase the voice or representation of the interests of the poor (especially the rural poor) in the policy process and/or (b) increase the effective demand for evidence-based approaches to policy making.

Many of the characteristics that are shaping the emerging situation can be summarised in the form of a conventional SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Among the emerging strengths are:

• Increasing transparency and room for debate;
  
• Increasing voice;
  
• Clearer strategic path;
  
• Improvements to budgetary processes;
  
• Increased capacity for policy analysis, and;
  
• Fewer opportunities for rent creation.

There are many weaknesses that still hamper the effectiveness of the policy process and tend to militate against the interests of the poor. These include:

• Insufficient capacity for policy analysis in ministries;
  
• Lack of reliable and up-to-date data;
  
• Weaknesses in the budgetary process;
  
• Problems of inter-ministerial coordination;
  
• Personality-driven processes;
  
• 'Large player' vested interests, and;
  
• Confused paradigms and policy narratives.

There are several opportunities for improving the policy process by building on the emerging strengths of the system through:

• Donor coordination and support;
  
• Strengthening voice, and;
  
• Creating local ownership of and commitment to the policy and budgetary processes.

However, threats remain including:

• The potential instability of the NARC coalition, and;
  
• A concern that unrealistic targets may have been set for the SRA.

In summary, the five major findings that emerge from the study are:

• The importance of developing voice;
  
• The importance of widespread stakeholder consultation in developing policies;
  
• The need to link the policy and budgetary processes;
  
• The need to minimise government regulatory activity, and;
  
• The desirability of donor coordination around a common agenda and shared interests.

Several areas emerge from the study that justify inclusion as possible agenda items for future donor support. These relate to:

• Continued support to the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Land and Natural Resources;
  
• Supporting KENFAP as well as other private sector organisations with advocacy and policy formulation roles;
  
• Support to individual commodity associations;
  
• Encouraging the formation of local community groups with common policy interests, perhaps under the umbrella of commodity associations;
  
• Strengthening capacity of the agricultural ministries and providing support for coordination and implementation mechanisms for the SRA, and;
  
• Support to policy research institutes, in particular to improve the effectiveness of their communications with various stakeholders.