Kenya’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation: nineteen 100-day projects to make a new water law work

  • Chris Bischoff
Kenya passed a water law in 2002 requiring the creation of independent water boards, semi-autonomous bodies to manage water delivery. The ministry did not know how to implement it. The budget year made that worse. Between plan-writing from June, a budget arriving in September, December closed, revisions in January and a midterm review in February, a Kenyan ministry had roughly a hundred working days in any year to actually implement anything.

The 100-Day goal

Rather than one implementation plan, the ministry launched nineteen separate 100-day projects across water services, land reclamation and irrigation. The permanent secretary chose projects that were measurable in progress and would show immediate results.

The results

Monthly revenues at the Athi Water Service Board rose by 160%.

Accounts with functional meters at the Nakuru Water Service Company rose by 56%.

Time to process smaller procurement orders at the Nairobi ministry office was halved.

Farmers with access to irrigation canals under the Nkando Irrigation Project rose from 117 to 186 inside the 100 days.

In Eldoret, water lost to leakage and theft fell from 40% to 32%. The team had set 25% and missed it.

Who did the work

Teams of eight to twelve civil servants each, working across Nairobi, Nakuru and Eldoret. Nadim Matta of Schaffer Consulting supported eight locally hired coaches, selected competitively from around a hundred applicants and trained by Schaffer.

How they did it

Teams created water boards, streamlined payment collection, reduced leakage from ageing pipes and curbed theft. Others rehabilitated semi-arid and gully areas and built small-scale community irrigation.

The selling point to ministry leaders was that the work needed no extra resources beyond coaching costs, which ran between 150 and 300 US dollars a day depending on the coach’s experience.

It was not light work. Team leaders travelled back to report progress, a full day each month went to assessing results, and there were continuous meetings to clear bottlenecks in staffing, procurement, money, or something as ordinary as a broken vehicle.

Competition between teams did more than any incentive scheme. Token gifts were handed out and teams went back to their departments calling themselves the champions.

What continues

Other ministries watched the water pilots and asked for the same support. By 2008, Rapid Results was running in 25 of 30 ministries with around 580 teams. By 2012 it had reached more than half of 42 ministries, all 175 local authorities, 45 state corporations and three of six public universities. A 2007 circular from the head of the public service made it mandatory for meeting performance contract targets.

The case names what made replication possible: locally trained coaches who had done the work in the water ministry were available to carry the method elsewhere.

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Thought starter reflection questions

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:
  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
  • How would you characterise the level of trust among participants in the meeting? To what extent did this shift as the meeting progressed? To what do you attribute this shift, if indeed it happened?

Thought starter...

Reflection Questions 

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:

  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
These are 100-Day Challenge Mentors. 

They did some work before you received the Challenge Note. This included:

  • Writing the Challenge Note, and making sure that the leaders of all the organisations represented on the team are comfortable with it – and committed to supporting the work of the team
  • Helping the leaders of these organisation recruit you and your colleagues to the team
  • Gathering some baseline data and other information that will help you and your teammates set your 100-Day goal and develop your plan.
  • Making sure all the preparations are made for a successful Lift-Off workshop, when you and your teammates will meet and get your 100-Day Challenge started. This includes venue, facilitation support, food, swags, comms, travel arrangements and whatever else is needed.

 

Mentors will participate in all or part of the Lift-Off Workshop, mostly at the start to provide context and answer questions, and at the end to give you and your teammates feedback about the goal and plan you develop.

During the 100 days following the Lift-Off Workshop, here’s what the Mentors will do:  

  • They will check in every two weeks with the team leaders to see how the team is doing and what support they and the team need.
  • They will keep other organisational leaders informed and engaged during the 100 days, and pull them in to help as needed.
  • They will participate in the last part of the Refuelling Workshop, halfway through the 100 days, to see what additional support the team needs, and to begin to plan with the team for sustainability and scale-up.
  • They will work with the team at the Sustainability Workshop to finalise recommendations on sustaining the results and building on the work of the team.