This Programme Operations Manual (POM) is prepared to operationalize, from the side of the Government of Kenya, the implementation of the support to be received from the World Bank under the Kenya Urban Support Programme (KUSP). KUSP seeks to support the implementation of the Kenya Urban Programme (KenUP), which is the Kenya government’s development strategy emanating from and giving life to the Kenyan National Urban Development Policy (NUDP). The latter was approved by a special cabinet committee in October 2016 and presented to parliamentary and senator committees in February and March 2017.
KUSP has different targets. First, it addresses the basic steps as provided for in KenUP, namely the establishment of urban governance as well as management structures, and secondly providing funding, to and through the county governments, to allow those urban structures to fulfil their mandates. Thirdly, the programme is providing capacity development support to the central government, notably the State Department of Housing and Urban Development for it to better assist and support the county governments in addressing urban issues in the spirit of the Constitution of Kenya (2010). Overall, it seeks to emphasise the pivotal role urban areas are supposed to be playing in terms of development, prosperity and modernisation.