To succeed, Kenya must prepare today for tomorrow’s challenges

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

Questions have recently been raised across the country about why the Government has begun preparing a post-Vision 2030 national development framework, currently referred to as Kenya Vision 2060, while Vision 2030 is still being implemented.

Kenyans from across society — including professionals, politicians, academics, private-sector players, civil society organisations, development practitioners, youth groups, faith-based organisations and ordinary citizens — have been asking: Why now?

Perhaps the more important question is whether Kenya has ceased to be a planning society. Successful nations plan continuously for their future. Strategic planning is not about waiting for an existing plan to expire before preparing its successor.

It is about anticipating emerging opportunities and challenges and ensuring that institutions are prepared to respond.

Governments therefore need not wait until the end of a national strategy to begin developing the next one. Long-term planning allows countries to build continuity, align policies and investments, and prepare for changes that may take years to materialise.

The practice is neither unusual nor unique to Kenya. Many countries develop successor national visions well before existing ones end.

Singapore, for instance, has undertaken long-range scenario planning for decades through the Centre for Strategic Futures in the Prime Minister’s Office. Finland has institutionalised long-term planning through its Parliamentary Committee for the Future and regular government reports on future challenges.

The United Arab Emirates launched UAE Centennial 2071 in 2017, more than 50 years before its target date, while Vision 2021 was still being implemented. The long-term vision has since been complemented by intermediate strategies such as We the UAE 2031.

Similar approaches exist elsewhere. China develops successive Five-Year Plans while pursuing longer-term objectives extending to 2035 and beyond. Rwanda began preparing Vision 2050 while Vision 2020 was still under implementation. Ireland’s Project Ireland 2040 was designed to provide long-term direction for infrastructure and regional development.

These examples demonstrate an important principle: national planning should be continuous, not episodic.

Kenya should therefore not view the preparation of Vision 2060 as an abandonment of Vision 2030. It is an opportunity to prepare for the country’s next phase of development while the current blueprint remains in force.

Vision 2030

Since its launch in 2008, Vision 2030 has guided major investments in infrastructure, energy, information and communication technology, education, healthcare, industrialisation and public-sector reform. Projects such as the Standard Gauge Railway, major highways, expanded electricity access, geothermal development, digital connectivity and modernised airports and ports have transformed parts of the country’s economic and physical landscape.

Kenya has also attained lower-middle-income status under the World Bank’s income classification.

But the environment in which Vision 2030 was conceived has changed considerably.

The 2010 Constitution fundamentally altered Kenya’s governance architecture through devolution, stronger constitutional institutions and a greater emphasis on public participation. Meanwhile, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, digital technologies and biotechnology, alongside climate change, green industrialisation, demographic shifts, changing geopolitical alliances and evolving global value chains, are reshaping how countries compete and develop.

Kenya’s own development priorities have also evolved. The Government’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda places greater emphasis on inclusive growth, enterprise development, manufacturing, agricultural transformation, county-based development and citizen-centred policymaking.

These changes make long-term planning more, not less, important.

The preparation of Vision 2060 should therefore be understood as prudent planning rather than an attempt to prematurely replace Vision 2030. Vision 2030 remains the country’s development blueprint until its completion. Preparing its successor now gives Kenya time to undertake the research, consultations and institutional preparations required for a credible long-term framework.

It also creates an opportunity for meaningful public participation. Kenyans should not merely be presented with a finished document. They should help determine the country’s aspirations, priorities and development choices for the decades ahead.

The process can also help align future Medium-Term Plans, legislation, institutions, public investment and resource mobilisation with a coherent long-term national direction.

The central issue, therefore, is not why Kenya is planning for 2060 while Vision 2030 is still running. The real question is whether we are planning early enough and well enough for the Kenya we want to build.

Tomorrow's challenges

Countries do not become successful by responding only to today’s problems. They anticipate tomorrow’s challenges and invest today in the institutions, infrastructure, skills and systems needed to overcome them.

Kenya should do the same.

Planning for Vision 2060 does not mean abandoning Vision 2030. It means recognising that national development does not stop when one vision ends.

Dr Silvester Kasuku, PhD, MBS, FKIP, is an adviser on governance in the Executive Office of the President.

Reporting originally appeared via Nation Africa. Read the full source for additional context.