About STRIDE

The STRIDE Training Solution is a program developed at Bridge Africa ADC that aims at building the capacities of county governments in the quality delivery of public services. Specifically, the program focuses on three key areas that are critical to giving county governments a cutting edge in the quality of their decisions - Public Participation and Outreach (PPO), Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Raising and Managing Public Revenues.

Public Participation and Outreach for Decision Makers

In Kenya, public participation is enshrined as a cardinal national value and principle of governance in Article 10 of The Constitution. The training program on public participation and outreach is intended to improve the quality of governance, provision of public goods and services, state effectiveness and citizen engagement. The design of the program focuses on building the capacity of both the executive and legislature to get the best value from a public process. The program also looks at the Foundations from a decision makers’ point of view and offers a perspective on how public participation can be integrated into the overall policy and legislative processes.

• Foundations of Public Participation from a Decision Maker’s Point of View
• Development of public participation policies and legislation
• Institutional frameworks for public participation
• Mechanisms and tools for public participation
• Costs and benefits of public participation
• Skills for citizen engagement and outreach for county governments
• Measuring the effectiveness and quality of public participation and
• Financing Public Participation

Public Private Partnerships in devolved governments

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly becoming a tool that governments, quasi-public entities and government agencies are using to accelerate service delivery, increase efficiencies and build local human capacities in private business.

In Kenya, the enactment of the Public Private Partnerships Act provides a legal framework upon which this can be done. The goal of this Training Course is to give county government officials the skills they need to undertake infrastructure and service delivery projects, from inception to termination in partnership with the private sector. The program builds on a compendium of successfully implemented global best practices or those that are underway with the focus on the following areas;

• The PPP Policy Framework
• Development of public participation policies and legislation
• Institutional Organization of PPP Units
• Building Public Support
• Financing
• Financing
• Project Implementation and Contract Management

Raising and Managing Public Revenues

The ability of county governments to strike the right balance between fiscal policy, broad-based growth, and financial sustainability still remains fundamental in promoting and sustaining development across every sector of the county economy especially in light of the new challenges posed by the opening-up of the Kenyan economy and the growth of local private sector. As a response to this challenge, this program is tailor made and designed to provide practical “how to” skills transferal for strengthening fiscal analytical expertise as well as structures and systems of county governments to be better managers public finance. The program focus areas include the following;

• Revenue forecasting Techniques
• Alternative methods of forecasting
• Receipts monitoring and forecasting models
• Fiscal capacity and tax effort
• Revenue management implementation
• Emerging Issues in revenue Management

Structure and Approach to the Trainings

Our trainings are ideally geared at keeping decision makers in the county government current on innovative programs that enhance their ability to deliver public services effectively. Every quarter of the year, STRIDE brings together a group of policy leaders from counties whose officials want to accelerate public service delivery and bring change. Each training programs organized in a series of training units which can be taken in phases or as a continuous program. In some cases however, individual counties contact STRIDE to develop specific tailor made trainings that respond and directly address their needs. This approach is rapidly gaining prominence.

Resource Persons

The training team is drawn from a mix of experienced and seasonal local and international public policy, governance and legal experts with occasional representatives from academia, government and business invited to deliver real life experiences to the participants from which they can draw. In some cases, partnerships such as those with the NEPAD-OECD Africa Investment Initiative in conjunction with its network of infrastructure partners in developing the PPPs course have been leveraged to deepen course content and breadth through the use of international experts from these partnerships. This is also a growing approach aimed at improving quality and our resource base.

Venue, Logistics and Costs

Ideally, the STRIDE Trainings can be hosted at any location provided the client institution finds it most convenient. For our own trainings however, the sessions are carried out thorugh a long term arrangement with The Kenya School of Monetary Studies (KSMS) with varying costs charged depending on whether the courses are fully sponsored, partially sponsored or self sponsored. Participants are advised to contact the Course Administrator directly to find out more and specific details.