Kenya will host the Virtual Africa Delivery Exchange (ADX) Summit 2020 to deliberate on service delivery in Africa amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, an official source said in Nairobi on Sunday.
The event will be organized by the President’s Delivery Unit (PDU) in partnership with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) as well as the Africa Development Bank (AfDB).
The organizers did not indicate the summit dates but there are indications it will possibly be held before the end of the year.
It will bring together senior government officials, delivery experts and development partners to exchange experiences and learn from one another about ensuring effective delivery in government.
Participants will discuss the importance of delivery, the problems they face and the solutions they have found, including those related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The pandemic, among other things, has provided a real-time lesson in the importance of delivery by governments for their citizens.
According to the TBI Centre of Government and Delivery Lead, Eden Getachew, TBI supports 15 governments across Africa directly.
It supports the governments in achieving their development goals and has had an in-country presence in Kenya since 2015.
Getachew says TBI helped to establish Kenya’s President’s Delivery Unit, drawing on its experience of working with governments across the world in coordinating and supporting delivery efforts, and continues to support its work today.
She said Kenya had really benefited from the unit, saying: “The President’s Delivery Unit (PDU) has grown to become an important cog in the engine of development.”
Since its creation in 2015, the PDU has been instrumental in tracking over 2,000 projects and ensuring they are either completed on time or remain on course.
This is achieved by tracking the progress, identifying ‘sticky’ issues which pose problems and, where necessary, bringing those issues to the attention of decision makers.”
Getachew said the committees formed under the Executive Order No. 1 of 2019 to coordinate development at various levels of government had also found PDU useful.
“It has a presence at the grassroots, as its officers are secretaries to regional and county development implementation and coordination committees (RDICCs and CDICCs).
“PDU uses its capacity to escalate issues upwards and ensure that bottlenecks in projects are addressed as soon as possible,” she said.
