Climbing a High Ladder – Development in the Global Economy
Climbing a High Ladder – Development in the Global Economy
Ed tech and educational opportunity during the COVID-19 school closures
The purpose of this study is to identify gaps and challenges in the use of education technology (ed tech) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu during COVID-19. Specifically, we investigated how use of ed tech differed by type of school (government or private), household socioeconomic status, and student gender—and how it changed during the COVID-19 school closures. Ultimately, we wanted to know how the use of ed tech may exacerbate or mitigate the unequal impact of school closures on student learning.
Through phone surveys of 201 households and a total of 271 primary-school-aged children in February of 2021, we sought to understand households’ educational practices in Chennai pre-COVID-19 and during the school closures. Our survey data showed that access to ed tech in schools and households before the pandemic was extremely limited and differed by household socioeconomic background and the type of school (government or private) children attended. Thus, we also explored educational activities from non-ed-tech sources that may have taken place.
Our survey findings indicate that during the pandemic-related school closures, students in private schools and those from high-socioeconomic status households have more access to digital devices and are more engaged in regular educational activities during COVID-19 than their peers in government schools and from low-socioeconomic status households; findings also indicate that girls are more likely than boys to have access to digital devices for learning and to engage in more regular educational activities. Unsurprisingly, parents turned out to be a major source of educational activities of young children during the school closures.
Alarmingly, 1 in 5 children in our sample were enrolled in schools that do not offer any remote instruction during the school closures, and even among the children whose schools had begun remote instruction, only slightly more than half attended all the classes.
Altogether, these preliminary results shed light onto a likely growing inequality of educational opportunity in India and around the world, suggesting the need for policymakers to broaden access to continuous and equitable learning opportunities across the student population.
Read the full report»
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How has education technology impacted student learning in India during COVID-19?
India has been one of the hardest-hit countries by COVID-19. Beyond the staggering impact on human life, COVID-19 has greatly disrupted access to education in India, with 247 million primary and secondary school students out of school. While school systems in India and across the world have made efforts to reach students at home through various means, recent estimates of the impact on learning and socio-emotional well-being suggest that the poorest children will be hurt the most by the pandemic-related school closures.
Indeed, school closures have compelled education systems to quickly devise and apply different modes of remote learning such as radio, TV, and various other types of online tools. But access to this education technology (ed tech) differs across and within countries—with students in high-income countries and communities much more likely to have access to online, virtual schooling than their peers in low- and middle-income countries and communities. Thus, an important question is to what extent will student learning and progression in school, especially among primary-school-aged children in low- and middle-income settings, be affected by the global school closures? Further, how will the COVID-19 school closures cause inequality in learning among girls and boys, among poor and affluent children, and across communities and countries of varying income levels?
To answer these questions, we conducted a household survey in February of this year in a southern city of India—Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu—with financial support from the Asian Development Bank and in collaboration with J-PAL-India. Chennai is the largest urban center in Tamil Nadu and is India’s sixth most populous city. Due to Chennai’s dense population, families typically have several nearby private and government school options, which provide a ripe setting to explore how the use of ed tech differed between different types of schools—both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, India offers a fertile environment for this study’s data collection as a leader in large-scale education reform and ed-tech application among developing countries. The diversity in its large population offers useful lessons applicable to many different contexts.
Alarmingly, 1 in 5 children in our sample were enrolled in schools that do not offer any remote instruction during the school closures, and even among the children whose schools had begun remote instruction, only slightly more than half attended all the classes.
Our goal was to get a better picture of primary school-aged children’s daily educational experiences during the COVID-19 school closures, and especially how students and teachers are using ed tech. We were particularly interested in understanding how these learning experiences may differ among children from low- and high-income households and between children attending private and government (publicly funded) schools.
Our survey findings
Alarmingly, 1 in 5 children in our sample were enrolled in schools that do not offer any remote instruction during the school closures, and even among the children whose schools had begun remote instruction, only slightly more than half attended all the classes.
Our findings further indicate that during the pandemic-related school closures, students in private schools and those from households with high socioeconomic status (SES) have more access to digital devices and are more engaged in regular educational activities than their peers in government schools and from low-SES households. As Figures 1 and 2 show, children enrolled in private schools and from high-SES households had higher rates of access to digital devices—such as smartphones, internet, and computers/laptops—than their peers in government schools and from low-SES households. These preliminary results shed light into a likely growing inequality of educational opportunity and suggest the need for policymakers to support access to regular learning opportunities at home for children from low-SES households in government and private schools. Other emerging evidence from the COVID-19 school closures suggests that ensuring students have access to even low-tech interventions, such as SMS text messages and phone calls, can help mitigate the potential learning losses.
Figures 1. Share of students with access to educational resources, by household income
Source: February 2021 Brookings phone survey.
Figure 2. Share of students with access to educational resources, by school type
Source: February 2021 Brookings phone survey.
Prior research has shown that the impact of school closures in low-income countries may differ by gender, as girls are often expected to help out with household chores and/or assist parents in caring for younger siblings. However, our study shows an encouraging pattern, where girls are more likely than boys to have access to digital devices for learning and to engage in more regular educational activities (see Figures 3 and 4). Nevertheless, this finding suggests the need for further analysis into why boys may be losing out on educational opportunities, and what strategies may be most effective to increase learning among both girls and boys in India and other low-income countries.
Figures 3. Share of students with access to educational resources, by gender
Source: February 2021 Brookings phone survey.
Figure 4. Frequency of engagement in educational activities, by gender
Source: February 2021 Brookings phone survey.
Altogether, these preliminary results shed light onto a likely growing inequality of educational opportunity in India and around the world, suggesting the need for policymakers to broaden access to continuous and equitable learning opportunities across the student population.
Looking ahead, it will be crucial for governments to enact strategies to help students recover from the learning losses suffered during the school closures and to return to school. Such a strategy may include:
Working closely with the health authorities, plan to reopen schools safely as soon as possible.
Assess each child’s foundational literacy and numeracy skills as soon as possible to help teachers and parents develop personalized interventions to ensure that each child can get back on track to develop these critical skills.
Expand access to digital devices and connectivity among educators and students, along with guidance and support to teachers on ed-tech resources that are best aligned to each student’s learning level. While ed tech is not alone going to ensure children learn, it can be a tool for educators, students, and parents to facilitate learning continuity during school closures and allow for more student-centered, engaging instruction in and outside the classroom.
Provide socio-emotional support to educators and students, recognizing that the pandemic has not only caused learning loss but also emotional trauma in too many households.
You can access the full report here.
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Africa in the news: Zambian election, impacts of the Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover, and health updates
Zambian opposition leader Hichilema wins presidential election
On Monday, Zambia’s electoral commission declared opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema the winner of the southern African nation’s recent presidential election. Hichilema garnered 2.8 million votes, or 50.1 percent of the total, narrowly eclipsing the 50 percent mark needed to win without recourse to a second round. Addressing the nation on Monday, the current president, Edgar Lungu, announced that he would “comply with the constitutional provisions for a peaceful transfer of power.” On July 14, Lungu had criticized the elections as “not free or fair,” but he ultimately earned only 1.8 million votes, a sum that the Financial Times suggests was insufficient to support a legal challenge to the result.
Since the election was called, the value of the kwacha has risen nearly 11 percent against the U.S. dollar. The prices of Zambia’s defaulted U.S. dollar-denominated bonds have also risen. Now, Hichilema will try to navigate Zambia out of its current debt crisis, which has it paying 30 to 40 percent of its revenue on interest payments after becoming the first African country during the pandemic to default on its obligations.
The Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan will likely have implications for Africa
According to Deutsche Welle (DW), the Taliban’s recent takeover of Afghanistan has heightened worries that extremist groups in Africa will be emboldened by that victory. In fact, in a recent radio interview, Kwesi Aning, director of the faculty of academic affairs and research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana, warned that the events in Afghanistan “can potentially put all of us in Africa and the Sahel at risk.” DW notes that many Islamic militant groups in the region have an affiliation to al-Qaeda, which was formerly based in Afghanistan.
Recent years have seen surges in extremist activities across the continent despite national government efforts to stamp out such activities and the presence of thousands of U.N. troops in extremist hot spots. In fact, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari suggested this week that the war on terror is not over but is moving to Africa. Nigeria itself has been fighting Boko Haram since 2009 and that conflict has spread to areas in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Just earlier this month, in northern Burkina Faso, suspected extremists ambushed a government convoy, killing 30 civilians and 17 soldiers. Other extremist groups in Africa include al-Shabaab in Somalia, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) in the Sahel, and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
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The Taliban’s resumption of power in Afghanistan comes after the U.S. withdrawal from the region after 20 years of military presence and has raised questions over other foreign military pullouts in many African hot spots. For example, in July of this year, France announced that it will reduce its military presence in the Sahel, withdrawing over 2,000 troops from the region. Some experts, including Ryan Cummings, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warn that France should now reconsider its decision to avoid a potential repeat of the Afghanistan scenario.
In related news, Uganda has agreed to take 2,000 Afghan refugees at the request of the United States. Uganda’s camp Bibi Bidi is the world’s largest refugee camp, and Uganda alone currently hosts about 1.4 million refugees escaping conflict. Afghan refugees will be housed temporarily in Uganda until relocated by the U.S., but, at this time, there is not a set date for when the refugees will be moved.
Vaccine inequity; confirmed case of Marburg virus in Guinea; Ebola in Côte d’Ivoire; cholera in Nigeria
On Wednesday, health officials in the U.S. announced plans to begin rolling out COVID-19 booster shots in October to all U.S. citizens. In response, Africa director for the World Health Organization (WHO), Matshidiso Moeti, criticized the decision, stating that such actions “make a mockery of vaccine equity” since wealthy countries have, on average, distributed more than 103 vaccine doses per 100 people, while in Africa only six doses have been distributed per 100 people. In other words, less than 2 percent of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated.
Indeed, vaccine access in the region remains difficult as well as controversial. While the region has demonstrated that it has the capability to mass produce the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines through manufacturers like Aspen in South Africa, many of those doses have been exported to Europe. In fact, as The New York Times reported this week, South Africa waived the right to ban vaccine exports from the country, sparking outrage from health activists like Fatima Hassan of the Health Justice Initiative, who called the decision to export the vaccines “scandalous, immoral, and unconstitutional.” While wealthy countries have promised to donate shots through the COVAX program, most of them will not be delivered until next year.
Meanwhile, as Guinea deals with its third COVID-19 wave, on July 25, doctors confirmed West Africa’s first-ever case of Marburg virus, two months after the country declared a new outbreak of the Ebola virus. Guinean health officials continue to monitor 172 people who were in contact with Marburg patient zero, who died on August 2. The Marburg virus, which is in the same family as Ebola, causes symptoms similar to Ebola and is transmitted between humans through bodily fluids. The government of Guinea, its neighbors, and the WHO are using the control system developed within the country to deal with Ebola in an attempt to stop the spread. In related news, neighboring Côte d’Ivoire declared its first case of Ebola in 27 years this week. The patient had traveled from Guinea last week and is currently being treated in intensive care.
Also in West Africa, Nigeria is currently responding to a cholera outbreak with more than 30,000 cases and 800 reported deaths this year. The disease is waterborne and is spread by poor access to clean water, open defecation, poor sanitation, and other hygiene issues, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The NCDC instructs Nigerians to only drink or use water that is boiled and stored safely to prevent infections.
20210820 AP Douglas A. Rediker
[Even if the Taliban could get money from the IMF…the process] would take, I think, months at the earliest, if at all. […] The U.S. still retains a lot of political heft in the global, political and economic systems to twist some arms. The Taliban are not going to be popular.
The COVID boom we could do without
Before Covid-19, the value of mergers and acquisitions in Australia hit its peak during the global financial crisis. More than $348 billion of deals were made in a single year as struggling companies were snapped up by their rivals.
The trend has shown no signs of declining since the pandemic set in, with the 2020 figure topping $372 billion. Correcting for inflation, the annual value of mergers and acquisitions each year in Australia is a whopping eight times bigger than it was back in 1990.
Should we be worried? Mergers and acquisitions have benefits and costs, and if the former are greater than the latter then they should be welcomed. But a growing body of research shows that their benefits, while large in theory, are not so big in practice. The costs, on the other hand, appear to be bigger and more persistent than ever.
Mergers and acquisitions have two main benefits. Bigger businesses benefit from economies of scale: their size and improved efficiencies mean they can produce more goods and services at a lower cost, boosting productivity. And bigger businesses can generate greater economies of scope, saving on costs a bit like a petrol station that also sells milk.
Mergers are an easy way for a business to gain these benefits by expanding into new markets, new locations and even new countries. They allow a business to expand from retail into wholesale, from wholesale into manufacturing, and from manufacturing into distribution and logistics. They can also be a way to save a failing business.
But mergers can create problems, and many of them relate to competition. When competing firms merge, we lose a competitor. This is not necessarily a problem if lots of other competitors exist or if new ones can enter the market quickly. But when a merger reduces competition, it causes all the things we are struggling with in Australia: high mark-ups, low wages growth, low investment and low innovation, all contributing to greater inequality.
Problems can arise even when a merger doesn’t involve competing firms. When mergers result in a business becoming vertically integrated, new competitors find it hard to compete with an incumbent that has its own manufacturing, wholesale, retail and distribution networks. When mergers allow businesses to sell bundled products or services, it becomes harder for customers to change from one supplier to another, reducing competition.
The most common argument in favour of mergers and acquisitions is a fallacious one: that Australia needs big businesses to compete internationally. Most of Australia’s economy isn’t “trade exposed,” and even the parts that are exposed to international competition don’t benefit from being allowed to become dominant — and often inefficient — in the Australian market.
The reason our athletes won so many medals in Tokyo isn’t that they were wrapped in cotton wool back home. They did well because they’ve spent many years competing fiercely against other Australians. The same is true for businesses. Allowing them to get big and lazy at home doesn’t make them more competitive overseas; indeed, it makes them less competitive. Competitiveness overseas first requires competitiveness at home.
The productivity benefits of mergers may also be overstated. Bruce Blonigen at the University of Oregon and Justin Pierce at the US Federal Reserve used detailed firm-level data to study the impact of mergers and acquisitions on productivity and market power across all US manufacturing industries. They found that mergers were associated with increases in average price mark-ups but did little to boost productivity.
The two economists also found little evidence of other claimed efficiency gains from mergers, such as reallocation of activity across plants and scale efficiencies in non-productive units of the firm.
Some studies question whether mergers provide much value to the acquiring company, too. Recent studies found that companies that make lots of small acquisitions tend to increase in value while big, one-off mega-deals tend to be riskier. Mergers might also be bad news for startups. The Economist reported that the FAANGs — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google — are surrounded by a “kill zone” in which companies are either acquired or quashed.
Mike Driscoll, a partner at investment firm Data Collective, says that technology conferences increasingly “send shock waves of fear through entrepreneurs… Venture capitalists attend to see which of their companies are going to get killed next.” This has made some venture capitalists more reluctant to invest in customer-focused startups.
So what, if anything, should we do about the Covid boom in mergers and acquisitions?
As a first step, we should be more cautious about mergers in industries where there are already too few competitors. More than half of Australia’s markets are concentrated — meaning the four biggest firms control a third of the market or more. Mergers in these industries should logically attract more scrutiny than mergers in less-concentrated industries. Imposing a public interest test on mergers in concentrated industries, having more post-merger reviews, and making more firm-level data available for public scrutiny would lead to better decision-making.
Such measures are important because mergers are hard, if not impossible, to reverse. It would be unwise to allow a one-off pandemic to result in long-term structural changes that weaken the competitiveness of Australia’s markets. This would worsen all the economic problems we have been struggling with for decades.
Covid-19 will have many long-term consequences for Australia. Weakened competition shouldn’t be one of them. •
A proposal for long-term COVID-19 control
Introduction
Four successive waves of COVID-19 have buffeted the United States for the past year and a half. With each wave, we have bet on different measures to push us through: First, public health measures, then drugs and treatments, and now, with our fifth wave, we hold out hope for vaccine-led recovery. But from the outset, we have underestimated this virus and its ability to maneuver the public health battleground; it is escaping the best defenses we are able to muster and finding new avenues of attack.
In this paper, I propose a multimodal strategy for long-term COVID control, one that sets up multiple barriers of protection so that we are able to not only contain SARS-CoV-2 and eliminate COVID-19 as a major life-threatening disease, but also return to a new social and economic life. The strategy uses the best of what we have on hand today—a rapidly growing arsenal of vaccines and antiviral drugs and public health measures— with an eye towards future improvements and developments.
The most immediate priority should be supporting additional research on the molecular biology of SARS-CoV-2, of which we still know surprisingly little. This is particularly important since there is great likelihood that COVID-19 will become endemic. Unlike the viruses that cause smallpox or polio, SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated an impressive ability to adapt and thrive in both humans and animals, including our much-loved pet, cats and dogs. Even if we can eliminate the disease from our own communities, it is unlikely we can do the same across the globe and for all our animal populations at the same time.
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The best we can hope for is containment of COVID-19 at levels we can tolerate both personally and economically. We have to use all the tools we have at our disposal— being aware of the inequities and disparities from country to country and within countries—that have made this and other diseases so hard to address.
Download the full working paper
Figure of the week: Potential for youth and female employment in industries without smokestacks
Africa’s youth population continues to grow rapidly: In fact, the World Bank predicts that people under the age of 25 are set to comprise 50 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa by 2050. Such growth has created now-urgent demand for employment that must be met for Africa to reduce poverty. To examine new strategies for job creation for the region’s youth, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) and its partner think tanks on the continent have been conducting research on how to support promising industries to grow and absorb low-skilled labor.
While export-led manufacturing has historically led to job creation, factors like technological progress and the evolving global marketplace have meant that Africa has not been able to capitalize on the gains from manufacturing that other developing regions have. In response, AGI researchers have identified other sectors, termed “industries without smokestacks” (IWOSS), that share characteristics with traditional manufacturing and thus might play a similar role in driving economic growth and job creation. In short, IWOSS are sectors that are tradable, have high value added per worker relative to average economywide productivity, exhibit capacity for technological change and productivity growth, and show some evidence of scale or agglomeration economies. IWOSS include high-value agribusiness, horticulture, tourism, business services, ICT (information and communication technologies)-enabled services, transport, and logistics—all sectors that are growing at a faster pace and have higher labor productivity than non-IWOSS sectors like agriculture. Notably, different sectors of IWOSS can cater to Africa’s youth, whose education and skills vary widely, with tourism and horticulture largely relying on low-skilled labor while sectors like logistics and ICT require more training.
The case studies for Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda were published earlier this year, and the recent paper “Addressing youth unemployment in Africa through industries without smokestacks” synthesizes the major findings and trends from those case studies.
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Overall, the case studies predict that IWOSS will account for 60 percent or more of new jobs in Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa; however, the share is lower for countries like Kenya and Uganda, which are projected to rely heavily on traditional, “smokestacks” industries to 2035 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Projected share of new jobs created by 2035 by sectoral grouping
Source: Coulibaly, B. and Page, J. Addressing youth unemployment in Africa through industries without smokestacks: A synthesis on prospects, constraints, and policies. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021).
More opportunities for women
Notably, IWOSS industries also offer more employment opportunities for women: In fact, the case studies reveal that most IWOSS subsectors employ a greater share of women than other sectors of the economy. Within IWOSS, tourism employs the greatest share of women (56.7 percent), while horticulture and export crops follow second at 53.2 percent (Figure 2). Female employees in ICT comprise only 31.7 percent of the sector; according to the authors, this finding indicates a greater need for training in digital skills for young girls and women.
Figure 2. Share of female employment by IWOSS sector
Source: Coulibaly, B. and Page, J. Addressing youth unemployment in Africa through industries without smokestacks: A synthesis on prospects, constraints, and policies. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021).
Policy recommendations
While the job creation potential of IWOSS relies on the fact that most roles do not require higher-level skills, a persistent lack of skills at all levels still holds their promise back. More specifically, the authors find that, for IWOSS firms to grow and create jobs, potential workers must demonstrate soft, digital, and intrapersonal skills, which can be taught through postsecondary education but require input from employers and businesses, as each sector has different demands for the skills required. Countries in the case studies have at least a moderate deficit in all six subcategories of skills: basic, problem-solving, resource management, social, systems, and technical. Notably, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda have a substantial deficit in all six skills for agro-processing and tourism, and in horticulture have only a moderate gap in social skills but a severe gap in the rest of the skill subcategories (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Skill gap by skill category and sector
Note: See the full paper for an extensive definition of each skill category.Source: Coulibaly, B. and Page, J. Addressing youth unemployment in Africa through industries without smokestacks: A synthesis on prospects, constraints, and policies. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021).
At the same time, the authors point out that gaps in necessary skills are not the only constraint IWOSS face, as poor infrastructure—like unreliable power supply and lack of or poorly maintained roads—pose major challenges for IWOSS development. Lack of competition as well as regulatory coordination issues that do not allow for customs and standards to be implemented also pose challenges. Since IWOSS face constraints similar to those of traditional manufacturing, the authors argue that policymakers are not required to choose between promoting IWOSS and manufacturing, thus enabling them to focus on forming multifaceted policies. Key takeaways of the report include the necessity of prioritizing investment in infrastructure (particularly gaps in the reliable supply of electricity), addressing the skills deficit through a demand-led approach between postsecondary education and businesses, and encouraging a competitive business environment. The individual case studies also provide country-specific recommendations for supporting the growth of IWOSS.
Is the BBI ruling a sign of judicial independence in Kenya?
On May 23, 2021, a special five-judge bench sitting at the High Court of Kenya at Nairobi declared unanimously that the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was unconstitutional. The High Court’s judgment, argued journalist and commentator Ferdinand Omondi, “is arguably the most significant ruling by Kenyan courts since President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election win was nullified in 2017.”
Notably, the government has appealed the ruling of the High Court and the case is now before a seven-judge bench of the Court of Appeal, with presiding. The Court of Appeal is expected to deliver its verdict on August 20, 2021.
Importantly, the judicial decision and subsequent reactions from the Kenyan political class, civil society, and institutional actors appeared to shed light on the changing political environment within the country as well as the continuing strengthening of democratic institutions, especially at the national level.
The ‘handshake’ and the Building Bridges Initiative
The Constitution Amendment Bill 2020 was an outcome of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI)—an effort by Kenyatta and political rival Raila Odinga, the leading contenders for the presidency in 2017 and their supporters. The BBI was expected to generally improve governance and prevent future post-election violence like that of the aftermath of the 2017 elections.
Indeed, in March 2018, Kenyatta and Odinga publicly declared that they had decided to put aside their political differences and come together through a “handshake.” As magnanimous and patriotic as this political gesture may have appeared to many observers, especially since it “brought calm and a sense of relief” to Kenyans following the extremely contentious 2017 presidential election, another interpretation is that this was essentially an effort to ensure the continued political relevance of Kenyatta and Odinga. In fact, many cynics view the truce with suspicion, arguing that this rapprochement could place Kenyatta, who is constitutionally barred from standing for a third term as president in 2022, in a position to assume the role of managing the country behind the scenes with a puppet president in post-2022 Kenya.
Importantly, while the handshake may have it did not resolve the feelings of alienation and marginalization that continue to consume some ethnolinguistic groups that are suspicious of the central government and believe that it is either unwilling or unable to deal effectively and fully with issues of extreme poverty and underdevelopment, inequality, inequities in the distribution of income and wealth (particularly land), ethnic animosity, and other problems that have relegated them to the political and economic margins.
The constitutional amendment bill
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The Kenyatta-Odinga handshake led directly to the production of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), whose main objective was to thoroughly investigate nine issue areas that were deemed by Kenyatta and Odinga to be critical to the creation of “a united nation for all Kenyans living today, and all future generations.” Among the BBI report’s wide-ranging series of recommendations are institutional reforms for significantly restructuring the country’s institutions, particularly its constitution, and reintroducing a hybrid system of government that will include power-sharing between a president and a prime minister, with members of the Kenyan Parliament effectively allowed to serve as part of the Cabinet.
If implemented, the proposed BBI reforms will likely undermine the country’s institutions of governance. They will also threaten judicial independence, eliminate opportunities for the formation of an effective opposition to government, severely erode Kenyan democracy, pervade any efforts to adhere to the rule of law, and make it extremely difficult to build the types of national ruling coalitions that can advance the interests of all Kenyans, instead of those of specific ethnolinguistic factions. In response, five political activists have challenged the process before the High Court.
The High Court rules on who can initiate amendments to the constitution
In May of 2021, the five-judge bench struck down the proposed amendment, declaring that “the President does not have authority under the Constitution [of 2010] to initiate changes to the Constitution, and that a constitutional amendment can only be initiated by Parliament through a Parliamentary initiative under article 256 or through Popular Initiative under Article 257 of the Constitution.” In other words, an amendment must emerge from the ordinary citizen and not the president, as required by the basic structure doctrine.
In this way, the court declared that the BBI steering committee was “an unconstitutional and unlawful entity,” hence not recognized by law, and with no legal capacity to initiate any action to change the constitution. In other words, the entire BBI process, which ultimately culminated in the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill 2020, was unconstitutional. Importantly, the court went further: In order to prevent “the mischief of disguising unpopular amendments among the popular amendments of the constitution,” the court held that each referendum designed to effect amendments to different articles of the constitution must have multiple questions, each dealing with each proposed amendment to the constitution.
The High Court then issued a permanent injunction that effectively restrained the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) from verifying that the initiative is supported by the requisite number of voters and submitting the draft bill to each county assembly for consideration. Finally, the court held that President Kenyatta could be sued in his personal capacity “in respect of anything done or not done contrary to the Constitution.”
Is Kenya an example of increasingly strong democratic institutions and judicial independence?
Kenya has been here before when it comes to contentious political issues being brought before a high court. Indeed, in September 2017, the country’s Supreme Court, under a challenge from Odinga, then-leader of the opposition, annulled the 2017 election and called for a new election to be held within 60 days. This Supreme Court ruling was “an unprecedented move,” particularly in a region in which judicial independence is a rarity and the executive branch of government usually dominates and controls the judiciary. Indeed, this ruling was considered historic and an important development in Kenya’s efforts to entrench democracy and the rule of law.
However, Odinga boycotted the rerun election in October 2017, “claiming that he and his party lacked confidence in the credibility of the process,” which led to Kenyatta capturing 98 percent of the vote. Although Odinga rejected the results, he did not challenge them before the courts. Nevertheless, a number of private citizens did challenge those results in several petitions to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court held that the rerun election had fulfilled or met all the constitutional requirements and hence was valid.
Despite this exemplary performance, Kenya’s judiciary continues to face some major challenges, which include the need to significantly “expand its own infrastructure and build professional capacities” as well as make certain that the integrity of judges “must never be in doubt.” In addition, political interference and lack of financial security remain serious threats to the independence of the judiciary.
Amending Kenya’s constitution
The constitutional review process is extremely complex and is often plagued by the factional appeals of special interests, which are contrary to the common will of the people. This complexity and the occasional intervention by factional interests partly explain why it took Kenya more than 20 years to finally produce a new constitution in 2010. The process through which the constitution can be legally amended is spelled out in Article 255. Initiatives to amend the constitution can originate in the Kenyan Parliament through a bill. The role to be played by the president, the public, and the IEBC are spelled out in Article 256. An amendment to the constitution can also be proposed by a popular initiative, which must be signed by at least 1 million registered voters. Such a popular initiative can be in the form of a general suggestion or a formulated draft bill as elaborated in Article 257. While the constitution does not grant the president the power to initiate changes to it, the president still has an important role to play—he or she can provide the leadership to make certain that amendments are designed to maximize the interests of the people writ large and not those of some faction, regardless of how it is defined.
Lessons from the High Court ruling and other signs of the strengthened rule of law in Kenya
There are several lessons that Kenyans and other Africans can learn from the High Court’s 321-page and well-reasoned and articulated judgment made in May 2021. First, the process, as frustrating as it may appear to Kenyatta, Odinga, and other supporters of the BBI, has reaffirmed the important role that courts can and must play in the peaceful resolution of political and constitutional issues in Kenya. Second, the ruling shows that Kenya’s constitution is working perfectly well—the petitioners, who strongly believed that the BBI process was unconstitutional and hence, unlawful—chose, and were able, to take their grievances to the High Court, instead of resorting to extra-constitutional approaches, such as violent mobilization. Indeed, the decision by both proponents and opponents of the BBI process to adhere to the law augurs well for constitutionalism and the rule of law in Kenya.
The way forward for Kenya
Despite the claim by Kenyatta and Odinga that the BBI is designed to finally bring to an end ethnic-induced post-election violence, this process, if successful, will only undermine Kenya’s constitutional order and threaten its democratic institutions. While the additional 70 parliamentary constituencies might satisfy and placate the groups that benefit from these new constituencies, those that consider themselves marginalized by the new constitutional changes will make demands for additional constitutional changes to accommodate them. Such opportunism is unlikely to end until all groups in Kenya, whether identified by religion or ethnicity, have been assigned their own political constituencies, effectively rendering the Kenyan state virtually ungovernable.
Kenya’s 2010 constitution essentially introduced a pseudo-federalist system consisting of national and county governments, with the goal of bringing government closer to the people, improving participation and inclusiveness, and abolishing what had been a dysfunctional and untenable governing process inherited from the colonial state. However, in contrast to a federalist system, sovereignty is not constitutionally divided between the national government and the counties and, in addition, national legislation can override or prevail over county legislation in some cases. Granting the national government significant constitutional powers to interfere with governance in the country’s subnational units does not augur well for true devolution of power.
Importantly, the country’s existing constitution already spells out and emphasizes the separation of powers, and these recent court rulings prove that the system is working. The BBI must either be abandoned or be subjected to more restructuring, possibly through a more inclusive and participatory process, because in its present form, it does not augur well for the type of institutional reforms that can significantly improve political and economic outcomes in Kenya. In other words, the BBI, if implemented in its present form, is not likely to resolve the problem of post-election violence nor significantly improve the peaceful coexistence of the country’s subcultures.
Proponents of the BBI argue that if it is successful, it can provide significant benefits to Kenyans. First, they argue that it can lead to a reduction in post-election conflicts and their destabilizing impacts. Both Kenyatta and Odinga have noted the “destabilizing impact [that] post-election conflicts have had on the country’s growth over the last 30 years” and have argued that the BBI “is aimed at finding a homegrown solution to the divisive nature of Kenyan politics.” Even opponents of the BBI must agree that dealing with the country’s “divisive politics and the resultant ethnic tensions” is a public policy imperative. The two politicians also argued that the BBI will help unify the country, and address several challenges that the country currently faces, including “youth unemployment, corruption and negative ethnicity.” With this in mind, it is important to note that the High Court faulted the process and not the contents of the BBI itself. Thus, if there must be changes to the constitution, they must be undertaken through a legal process, as prescribed in the constitution.
With respect to the reforms proposed by the BBI, it is important to note that parchment prohibitions alone are not enough to secure and protect the fundamental rights of Kenyans. Like their counterparts in other African countries, Kenyans are frustrated with their political elites who have been negligent in safeguarding the rights of the masses and providing them with the wherewithal to create the wealth that they need to confront poverty and improve their living standards. While institutional reforms are critical for peace and security—as well as economic and social advancement of all Kenyans—in order for these institutions to perform their functions and advance the general welfare, Kenya must have “a virtuous public and virtuous leaders” or else the country will remain trapped in a state of political dysfunction and deteriorating economic conditions.
Mainstreaming the outcomes mindset of results-based financing
Today there are over 200 registered impact bond transactions globally and 19 transactions in low- and middle-income countries. Over the last decade, impact bonds have gained momentum through repeatedly demonstrating their effectiveness. The very first development impact bond (DIB) on girls’ education generated a more than 60 percent improvement in literacy outcomes in just three years in the Indian NGO Educate Girls’ program, demonstrating the power of simple performance incentives done right. This has grown interest and a community of believers.
These exciting results have unfortunately not led to the anticipated widespread adoption of impact bonds by governments. Since the inception of impact bonds, low- and middle-income country governments have participated as outcome payers in only seven projects globally. Governments have engaged at small scale—motivated by the reputational value of paying for results, the promise of matching donor funds, or the rare politicians’ and bureaucrats’ intrinsic motivation. Impact bonds are narrow innovation instruments, but government adoption is a challenge that also holds true for other simpler results-based financing (RBF) instruments that can be easily integrated in large-scale government delivery.
While impact bonds and RBF may sound complicated or exotic, they are about deploying simple, sensible, and performance-critical delivery management practices.
While impact bonds and RBF may sound complicated or exotic, they are about deploying simple, sensible, and performance-critical delivery management practices: Clarify, articulate, and incentivize target outcomes; provide necessary autonomy to front-line staff; measure progress; reward good performance; and repeat these steps. These practices are routine in high-performing organizations but are often lacking in many developing country governments that manage trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.
While we should absolutely debate the mechanics of RBF (financial incentives are not always great, an overemphasis on measurement can sometimes be counterproductive, and so on), we must insist on dramatically accelerating the use of the type of citizen-centered program delivery that the RBF community is pursuing. According to a 2016 Harvard study, only three out of 102 developing countries surveyed are on track to building strong delivery capacity for basic services by the end of the 21st century. The urgent need for progress on critical local issues like inequality and global issues like climate, migration, and global security require us to change course.
Strengthening delivery governance as a precondition
Delivery failures are pervasive and have multiple root causes. However, the few success stories in sustaining excellence in government-led delivery all point to one important precondition: delivery accountability. Citizens must have the information, collective action mechanisms, and power to hold governments accountable to delivery targets—something that the World Bank also argued for in its 2004 World Development Report on service delivery
Rwanda offers a good example. The government has faced strong institutional incentives to deliver for the last 20 years. President Kagame’s government understood that delivering high-quality services to all was critical to its own legitimacy and longevity. That led to significant investments in delivery governance, including transparent yearly reporting of delivery achievements and public evaluations and sanctions of ministers who fail to deliver. In turn, that led to efforts to improve delivery performance through the adoption and scale-up of highly successful RBF programs and the establishment of the famous ”Imihigo” performance contracts, which assign delivery targets and corresponding performance payments to each civil servant. This helps explain Rwanda’s performance in universal health care, which the World Health Organization called “the beacon of universal health coverage” in 2019.
To shift from being a donor-pushed initiative to becoming a government-led practice, the RBF movement needs to deploy and support strategies that scale such delivery governance mechanisms that pressure governments to improve their performance.
Promising strategies for citizens, governments, and donors to prioritize
Today the fields of governance and service delivery work in silos. Governance work has mostly focused on “higher-level” issues like reducing corruption, the free press, and improving procurement transparency rather than governing service delivery, where much of the public spending challenge lies. As a result, most countries do not have independent institutions with the mandate, the resources, and the reach to measure the quality of public programs and hold governments accountable. Often, even ministries of finance do not collect any data to evaluate the quality of services delivered by line ministries, let alone their relevance and impact on citizens. Accelerating delivery excellence in the public sector will require working with existing governance funders and champions to develop stronger governance systems around service delivery.
Strong delivery governance systems will incentivize governments to search for greater impact, lead them to leverage readily available tools like impact bonds and RBF, and ultimately direct taxpayers’ contributions and donor grants to well-functioning delivery systems that actually produce results.
Actors trying to improve governance can create the right macroinstitutional delivery incentives, while the RBF field can equip governments with the practical tools around financing, measurement, and performance management to deliver superior performance.
Strengthening delivery governance will require at least the following investments:
Increase transparency around delivery targets and delivery performance in key areas of service delivery like education, health, social protection, and the environment. We need governments to establish quality and impact targets and provide regular progress reports for all major policy areas. This would require establishing quality measurement frameworks and investing in measurement teams, data infrastructure, and open data practices that inform citizens of the return on taxpayer money. Affordable and scalable technologies are available to help. Without this building block, citizens will not have the information required to hold governments accountable.
Strengthen independent institutions that perform quality audits by expanding the mandate and impact monitoring capabilities of national oversight bodies that audit and control governments to independently verify and audit government quality reports, and direct operational improvements where needed. Every ministry could be given a quality rating, for example, which could impact future budget allocations. It would be critical to engage citizens in this process through inclusive social accountability mechanisms to bring the citizens’ voice to life.
Drive intragovernmental incentives. A third pillar includes the introduction of performance incentives within governments’ various delivery agencies through performance-based grants. For instance, this would apply where ministries of finance make fiscal transfers to other ministries or local government at least partly conditional on delivery performance that is established by quality reports. These intra-governmental performance management measures are critical to reaching the front line of service delivery, and thereby citizens.
Each country will need a contextualized roadmap to achieve strong delivery governance. Donors, citizens, and government champions stand to gain from prioritizing and investing in these systems. They will incentivize governments to search for greater impact, lead them to leverage readily available tools like impact bonds and RBF, and ultimately direct taxpayers’ contributions and donor grants to well-functioning delivery systems that actually produce results.
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