[Client Impact]

County Capacity Performance Assessment

[Client Impact]

County Capacity Performance Assessment

Client

KDSP

Location

Kenya, National

Value

USD 270.7K

Duration

2022 - 2022
Overview

The Kenya Devolution Support Programme, a World Bank-financed programme supporting the country's devolved government system, allocates performance grants to counties based on independently verified institutional capability. ACAL was engaged as the Independent Verification Agency to conduct the Annual Capacity and Performance Assessment across all 47 county governments, the assessment on which grant eligibility and allocation decisions depend.

All 47 county governments assessed within a single verification cycle, with uniform tools and financier-grade quality assurance

Counties verified against minimum access conditions, minimum performance conditions, and defined performance measures per the ACPA manual

Assessment results directly informed performance grant eligibility and allocations under a World Bank-financed programme

Capacity needs and gaps documented per county, giving the programme a national picture of devolved institutional capability

Client Context

Kenya's 2010 Constitution created 47 county governments and transferred to them responsibility for essential services from health to agriculture to local infrastructure. The Kenya Devolution Support Programme was designed to strengthen that devolved system using a performance-based financing model: counties that demonstrate sound public financial management, planning, and institutional discipline access capacity and performance grants, while those that fall short receive targeted support to improve.

The model only works if the assessment behind it is credible. Grant money moves on the results, county governments contest findings that cost them allocations, and the World Bank requires verification that meets its evidentiary standards. The programme therefore engages an Independent Verification Agency to conduct the Annual Capacity and Performance Assessment, and the integrity of the entire financing mechanism rests on the quality of that work.

The Challenge

Assessing one county government rigorously is demanding. Assessing all 47 within a single cycle, to a uniform standard that will survive challenge from county administrations and scrutiny from an international financier, is a national field operation.

The assessment had to verify each county against the full framework set out in the ACPA manual: minimum access conditions that determine basic eligibility, minimum performance conditions covering the non-negotiable requirements of lawful public administration, and defined performance measures spanning public financial management, planning, monitoring and evaluation, human resource management, and civic participation. Every finding needed documentary evidence, because every finding carried financial consequences.

The operational challenges compounded the technical ones. Forty-seven assessment engagements had to be scheduled, staffed, and completed within the programme's timetable. Assessment teams needed consistent training so that a county scored in Mandera was measured identically to one scored in Mombasa. And the verification had to remain visibly independent throughout, in a context where results determine the flow of significant public resources.

Our Approach

ACAL structured the engagement as a four-phase national operation, with consistency and evidence discipline designed in from the start.

Inception and instrument design: assessment tools built from the ACPA manual, piloted, and refined before national rollout, with a detailed work plan covering all 47 counties

Team preparation and standardisation: assessors trained on uniform application of every condition and measure, with scoring calibration to eliminate assessor variance

Nationwide field verification: kick-off engagements, structured assessment sessions, and documentary evidence collection in every county, managed to a single quality standard

Verification, reporting, and close-out: draft findings subjected to internal quality assurance and county feedback, followed by a final assessment report presented to the programme and its financiers

Solution Delivered

ACAL delivered the complete assessment cycle: an inception report detailing methodology and tools, the assessment instruments themselves, a draft assessment report, and a final report documenting each county's compliance with minimum access conditions, minimum performance conditions, and performance measures, together with the capacity needs and gaps identified in every county.

The final report gave the programme what performance-based financing requires: a defensible, evidence-backed basis for grant decisions across all 47 counties, and a county-by-county map of institutional strengths and weaknesses to target subsequent capacity support. The engagement was led by a senior ACAL team under Country Director Morrison Ngari, delivering planning, design, execution, and reporting within the six-month programme window.

47

Counties Assessed

47

Counties Assessed

100%

National Coverage

100%

National Coverage

USD 301.6K

Engagement Value

USD 301.6K

Engagement Value

7 yrs

Client Relationship

7 yrs

Client Relationship

Impact

The assessment provided the verified basis on which performance grants flowed to county governments under the programme, converting institutional capability into financing signals across the entire devolved system. Counties received more than scores. Each obtained a documented account of its capacity gaps, giving governors and county executives a prioritised improvement agenda backed by independent evidence.

At the national level, the assessment extended one of the most valuable datasets in Kenyan governance: a uniform, repeated, independently verified record of how all 47 devolved governments actually perform. That record underpins programme design far beyond KDSP itself, informing how urban grants, climate finance, and successive devolution support operations set their conditions and target their support.

For the World Bank and the National Treasury, the independent verification protected the integrity of performance-based financing at national scale, demonstrating that conditional grant systems can operate credibly across an entire devolved structure.

Key Takeaways
Performance-based financing is only as strong as its verification

Conditional grants change institutional behaviour faster than capacity building alone, but only when the conditions are verified independently and consistently. The credibility of the assessor is not adjacent to the financing model. It is the financing model.

Uniformity at national scale is a designed outcome, not a default

Forty-seven assessments produce comparable results only when instruments, training, and quality assurance are engineered for consistency before fieldwork begins. The calibration investment made at inception is what makes the final league table defensible.

Assessment data compounds into national infrastructure

A single assessment cycle informs one year's grants. Repeated cycles, conducted to a consistent standard, become a longitudinal evidence base on devolution itself, one that Kenya's policymakers and development partners now rely on across programmes.

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