Performance Management: Restoring Trust & Excellence in County Governments.”

On the sidelines of the 2025 #DevolutionConference in Homa Bay, our Principal Secretary, Michael Loikenu Lenasalon, took center stage as a panelist in a thought-provoking session titled “Performance Management: Restoring Trust & Excellence in County Governments.”

Hosted by the GIZ,German International Cooperation, the discussion brought together leaders and development partners committed to elevating governance standards across Kenya’s devolved units.

The keynote was delivered by H.E. Henriette Geiger, European Union Ambassador to Kenya, who reaffirmed the EU’s strong support for county government performance initiatives and expressed hope that the conference would generate actionable ideas to make both county executives and assemblies more responsive to citizen needs.

PS Lenasalon emphasized that devolution must be coordinated and citizen-driven, with deliberate efforts to build public capacity to understand the tenets of service delivery.

"When citizens are at the heart of performance management, governments don’t just deliver services, they deliver trust, dignity and hope," noted the PS.

The panel also heard from the German Ambassador to Kenya, Sebastian Growth, who underscored that performance management means learning from the best and from each other. He called for merit-based recruitment within counties and zero tolerance for corruption.

Adding to the conversation, the Principal Secretary for National Government Coordination, Ahmed Ibrahim, stressed the importance of planning for results, resourcing for results, delivering results and following through with robust monitoring and evaluation systems. 

He urged that reporting should not be a box-ticking exercise but a learning process that drives continuous improvement.

In his closing remarks, PS Lenasalon called for steward leadership as the foundation for performance and results, advocating for the adoption of a matrix of consequences and the incentivization of county workers to drive excellence.

“Performance management in counties must be a living system that inspires excellence, demands accountability, and reforms service delivery into tangible results,” he said.

The session concluded with a shared commitment among participants to make performance management not just a governance tool, but a transformative culture that brings government closer to the people and delivers prosperity for all.