About County Governance Watch (CGW)

The County Governance Watch (CGW) is a registered not-for-profit organization established in Kenya. It is an active convener in Kenya’s governance, development, and social transformation. Since its inception, CGW has made significant strides in strengthening the pillars of good governance in Kenya and the region at large. Through its Kenya program and with a specific focus on the counties. CGW has taken lead in the creation of the County Governance Index (CGI) for measuring the governance and service delivery in the counties.

CGW’s purpose is to provide solutions for socio-economic and political development in the counties by educating, training, developing the capacities of women, youth, and persons with disability by offering platforms for engagement with the county structures and other stakeholders in strengthening the county governance processes and enhancing opportunities for the public to participate in the governance, leadership, and decision making processes of their affairs.

CGW has made significant strides in strengthening the pillars of good governance in Kenya and by enhancing public participation processes. CGW has taken lead in creating the County Governance Index (CGI), which assesses the performance of Counties by measuring the governance and service delivery levels of the devolved services that are closest to the citizen’s hearts. These include water, health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure among others.

Programs, Strategies, and Interventions

• Our interventions aim at enhancing public participation dialogues in informing collective action toward county
  policy formulation and implementation in access to information, knowledge generation, and management for
  prosperous Counties to deliver services.
• County Governance Watch has a presence in about 33 counties where it has direct engagements with the
  Through partners and various citizen groups are known as Citizen Action Groups (CAGs), county governments.

Our thematic areas include;

• Devolution and County Participation: County Governance Index, Social Budgeting
• Defend My Future Campaign: Peace  and  Security (Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism among the Youth), National Cohesion and Integration/PCVE
• Human Security and security sector reforms
• Research, Reflection, and Policy Advocacy
• County Election Dialogues (Youth and peaceful elections)
• Youth and Governance – Matching through Mentorship

At the regional level, 2015-2019, CGW served as the National Chair of the International Conference for the  Great  Lakes  Region  (ICGLR)  Civil  Society  Forum for  Kenya which is domiciled at the  National Coordination Mechanism (NCM) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It is also the Regional leader of the Democracy and Good Governance thematic area at the Regional Civil Society Forum (RCSF) of ICGLR.

Overall Objective

To enhance citizen participation  for effective, quality service delivery and sustainable development

Vision

Empowering citizens for quality and effective services delivery in social economic and sustainable development

Mission

Promoting citizen participation for quality and effective service delivery

Our Values

• Transparency
• Accountability
• Integrity
• Social justice and democracy
• Teamwork
• Training, Technical Assistance, and capacity building

 Partnerships

• CGW has engaged with about 33 counties directly on this front including holding 27 county dialogues leading to the 1st National Conference in 2016 and the second in 2017.

• CGW engaged 35 County Governments, UNDP, PACT, Kenya School of Government (KSG), Saferworld, IFES, USAID, National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), National Steering Committee on Peacebuilding and Conflict Management (NSC), Pwani University, USIU, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University (JOOUST), International Leadership University (ILU), Machakos University, and Mount Kenya University among others.

• In 2017, CGW in partnership with the Council of Governors (COG), Ministry of Devolution and Planning, UNICEF, and other partners organized the First Children’s Devolution Conference, whose communiqué informed the Outcome Document of the 4th Devolution Conference which was held in Naivasha, Nakuru County.

• In 2018, CGW in partnership with the Ministry of Devolution and ASALs and the Council of Governors with about 300 youth leaders to the 5th Annual devolution Conference to be held in April 2018 in Kakamega County.