Anticorruption agencies and external donors in Post Independance Kenya

Abstract

Governance reform in Africa has attracted both local and international attention. African initiatives, such as NEPAD and African Union, have endorsed good governance as a precondition for Africa’s emancipation from poverty while the international community has appreciated the need for well-governed proactive states in Africa in place of minimalist view that donors promoted with structural adjustment programmes. Donors’ proactive view of states led to governance reform as a criterion for receiving aid. Thus, limiting corruption by creating anti-corruption agencies became one of the requirements for donors’ support. Though not concentrating on anti-corruption agencies exclusively, this research report captures the complexity of donor conditions in reforming governance in Kenya through anti-corruption initiatives. It concludes that conditions are inevitable in an aid dependent country but cannot be sustained by external actors if they work without local support. The central argument of this paper is that there is need for promotion of a convergence of approach in reforming governance. The donor community and indigenous Africans need to view and promote governance reform from a developmental perspective in order to make foreign aid count in meeting Africa’s objectives. The policies donors espouse will bear out on African development if electorates buttress them and these policies need to be consistence with the welfare of the populace especially economically marginalized groups of population as Millennium Development Goals seek to encourage.