Vision 2060 must deliver where 2030 fell short

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

There is an old African saying that when a man plants a mango tree, he should not spend every morning digging around its roots to check whether it is growing. Nations, too, require patience. Yet patience is not the same as complacency. As Kenya embarks on the journey towards Vision 2060, it is worth asking a difficult but necessary question: what became of Vision 2030?

The answer is neither triumph nor failure. It lies somewhere in between, like the father who proudly builds his family a magnificent house but forgets that walls alone do not pay school fees. Kenya built the house. The challenge now is to build the income that sustains it.

Few would dispute that Vision 2030 transformed Kenya's physical landscape. Roads now reach places that were once seasonal footpaths. Electricity has spread through the Last Mile Connectivity Programme. The Standard Gauge Railway, expanded ports, geothermal plants in Olkaria and Konza Technopolis have reshaped the country's infrastructure. Kenya has also become a global pioneer in mobile money through M-Pesa, a continental leader in financial technology and one of the world's foremost producers of renewable energy. In these areas, Vision 2030 moved from paper to pavement.

Yet development has two sides. Infrastructure is the hardware of an economy; productivity is its software. A highway that carries imported goods from the port faster than locally manufactured goods to foreign markets is only half a success. Concrete is useful, but productivity is priceless.

The numbers tell an important story. Vision 2030 envisaged Kenya sustaining annual economic growth of 10 per cent for more than two decades. Such growth would have doubled the size of the economy roughly every seven years. Instead, Kenya has generally expanded at between four and five per cent annually. That is respectable by regional standards, but it is only about half the pace required to achieve the transformation originally envisaged. Four per cent growth builds an economy. Ten per cent growth transforms one.

The difference may appear small on paper, but compound growth is one of the most powerful forces in economics. A country growing consistently at 10 per cent soon leaves behind one growing at five per cent, just as a child who reads one book every week will eventually build a library of knowledge while another who reads one each month wonders why they have fallen behind.

Ambitions of Vision 2030

Progress has nevertheless been real. Kenya attained lower-middle-income status, and Gross Domestic Product per capita has risen steadily over the years. Yet income growth has not matched the ambitions of Vision 2030, nor has it generated enough quality jobs for the country's youthful population. Manufacturing, which the Vision expected to become the engine of economic transformation, today contributes only about eight per cent of Gross Domestic Product and has remained largely stagnant for years. Three out of every four Kenyan workers continue to earn a living in the informal sector. A university degree, once regarded as a passport to prosperity, increasingly guarantees only participation in an intensely competitive labour market. Many graduates have become remarkably innovative entrepreneurs, but necessity should never be mistaken for national economic strategy.

Our savings tell a similar story. Vision 2030 anticipated national savings rising to about 30 per cent of Gross Domestic Product in order to finance investment domestically. Today they remain well below that level, forcing greater reliance on borrowing. Like a family that builds a fine home entirely on loans while saving little for emergencies, the structure may stand proudly, but financial anxiety never disappears. Borrowing is not inherently bad. Borrowing without generating sufficient productivity to repay comfortably is.

The Book of Genesis records Pharaoh's dream of seven fat cows followed by seven lean ones. Joseph understood that prosperity was not secured during the years of abundance but by preparing wisely for the years of scarcity. That lesson remains relevant today. Economic success is rarely determined by the size of a budget but by the quality of institutions that manage it.

The global economy has become an unforgiving race. Vietnam transformed itself from one of Asia's poorest nations into one of the world's manufacturing hubs by maintaining consistent industrial policy for decades. Ireland attracted global technology firms not because it possessed Europe's largest market, but because it offered stable policies, skilled workers and confidence that today's rules would still apply tomorrow.

Poland quietly modernised its industries while much of Europe focused elsewhere. India combined education with digital innovation to become the world's technology back office before steadily evolving into a centre of advanced manufacturing and services. Closer home, Mauritius has shown that trust, transparency and policy consistency are themselves valuable economic assets, while Seychelles has demonstrated that sound governance can compensate for limited natural resources.

The lesson is remarkably consistent across these diverse nations. Countries rarely become prosperous because they frequently rewrite their economic vision. They become prosperous because they faithfully execute it.

Vision 2060 principles

One weakness of Vision 2030 was therefore not the vision itself, but our tendency to replace long-term national strategy with new political slogans every electoral cycle. A relay race is won when each runner receives the baton and continues forward, not by returning to the starting line to design a different race.

That is why the emerging conversation around Vision 2060 deserves careful attention. Extending the planning horizon is sensible. Extending it without strengthening institutions would merely postpone disappointment. A longer roadmap is useful only if the driver remains committed to the destination.

Three principles should therefore define Vision 2060.

First, policy stability. Investors do not fear taxation nearly as much as they fear uncertainty. Capital behaves like a cautious bird; it settles only where the branches are steady. Stable tax policy, predictable regulation and disciplined public finances are often more valuable than generous incentives that change every few years.

Second, productivity and exports. Kenya has invested substantially in roads, ports and energy. The next frontier is ensuring those roads carry Kenyan exports rather than simply accelerating imports. Every kilogramme of roasted coffee, every finished leather shoe, every pharmaceutical manufactured locally and every software application exported represents value added, foreign exchange earned and jobs created at home.

Third, competition through devolution. Counties should increasingly compete not over the tallest office buildings or the most colourful launches, but over who creates the easiest environment for enterprise, who reduces regulatory delays, who attracts investment and who enables the greatest number of small businesses to become medium-sized firms. Prosperity grows where enterprise is rewarded.

We should also remember that governments do not create wealth directly. They create the conditions under which citizens create wealth. The role of the State is not to replace entrepreneurs, farmers, innovators and investors, but to ensure that each can flourish within fair, predictable and efficient institutions.

An African proverb reminds us that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second-best time is today. Vision 2060 should therefore become more than another elegantly bound policy document destined for library shelves. It should become a national covenant that survives changes of government, rewards consistent implementation and measures success not by the number of projects launched, but by the number of productive jobs created, businesses expanded and families lifted into lasting prosperity.

History rarely remembers nations for the elegance of their plans. It remembers them for the discipline of their execution.

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