In Kenya, records management occupies a strategic position in the effective and efficient management of the public sector, where leaders must be accountable and transparent to the citizenry. The devolution of records management and ongoing public services reforms, especially in municipalities, present various challenges, such as changing leadership styles, reversed communication patterns, planning procedures, and regional policies and programs. Similar to other government ministries and departments, the amount of records created and received in municipalities has increased significantly over the years, and these municipalities stand the risk of losing their heritage if records are not well managed. According to the Office of the Auditor General's (OAG) 2019 annual audit reports, municipalities are struggling with the management of records management, resulting in audit queries. It is on this premise that various municipalities reached out to the World Bank Group (WBG) through the Kenya Urban Support Program (KUSP, P156777) to provide records management technical support for the 59 eligible municipal governments.
To begin, six pilot municipalities and one city (Rumuruti, Wote, Bomet, Vihiga, Kilifi, Malindi, and Nakuru City) were selected. The WBG's Archives and Records Nairobi team together with the National Program Coordination Team (NPCT) under the State Department of Housing and Urban Development organized a high-level Records Management Roadmap training for all municipal managers to orient them on the Records Roadmap toolkit and to get buy-in from municipal management. Thereafter, training for the municipal records management officers in the six selected pilot municipalities was conducted. The municipal teams conducted the records management capacity assessment in the respective municipalities using the WBG Records Management Roadmap Tool.
The WBG Archives and Records Nairobi team with the support of two record management consultants hired by the KUSP program will work with the municipalities to strengthen weak records management areas identified through the assessment process during the project extension period (July - December 2023). It is expected that the lessons from the pilot phase will be used to upscale the intervention to other participating municipalities. Be on the lookout for the ‘after interventions’ assessment results.