Execution Of UDA Manifesto Lies Squarely With Full Support Of Kenyans

President-Elect William Ruto at the Deputy President Residence in Karen, Nairobi on August 5th, 2022. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

President-elect William Ruto is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow to commence his long-and-winding journey of navigating UDA manifesto, purposively designed to ensure Kenya realises economic transformation, and also the establishment of a strong, responsive and vibrant public service.

The strategic development plan, which is entrenched in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development popularly known as "Agenda of the people, by the people, and for the people" is a large-scale systematic scheme aimed at making certain realisations in economic transformation; fight endemic corruption in government establishments; ensure a comprehensive review of the education system; make reality universal healthcare coverage, and in a general sense ensure Kenya Vision 2030 is on the right course.

The policy goals of the blueprint, however, cannot be achieved without overwhelming public support - thus the new government will have to turn around public attitudes and perceptions into constructive action and support the noble cause.

In line with Vision 2030, the plan focuses broadly on the challenges of engaging the citizenry in development. The fundamental issues addressed in the plan include: Why public institutions need to engage the citizenry to achieve sustainable development; how engaging the public can create a greater impact on development; what public institutions should do to engage the citizenry, and more importantly examine the public response on economic sustainability.

It is through this economic modelling, which will come with massive financial support by the government right from the grassroots (bottom-up), that the new administration will be able to accomplish the pledges such as investing at least Sh250 billion in the agriculture sector to boost food security, and provide Sh50 billion annually to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Other areas of concern lined up under the bottom-up economic modelling where the citizenry has to play a central role are building of 250,000 affordable houses every year through public/private partnership; setting up a settlement fund to resettle the landless; establishing a fully publicly funded universal healthcare coverage through NHIF, besides constructing more level six hospitals and hiring additional healthcare workers.

In actual fact, the incoming government plans to set up an economic model that stresses on the participation of all Kenyans for the country to build a formidable, robust and resilient economy, which has the ability and potential to recover quickly from a shock; the economy that has the capability to withstand a shock and the capacity to avoid the shock altogether.

Mr Sossion is an expert in education, leadership and policy.