Abstract:
This paper is about development failures as has been experienced in Kenya given the broader context of cutthroat competing political and economic typologies that has little in common with specific development needs of the people. In many ways, development as it has been experienced before - that is the process - was by and large removed from the local people and controlled by the State functionaries and apparatus. Taking the destructive nature of extractive politics practiced everywhere in Africa that creates extractive economic institutions that are not pro-poor in outlook, we contend there is need to take seriously the critical input and participation of the people in determining their development blueprints and address priorities accordingly. The idea of development is political because it relates to the allocation or distribution of resources and reflects the impact of past and present policy choices. An alternative development paradigm built up from below becomes necessary ―based on observations of a reality that very often does not favour economic development. Rather than seeking to remove the obstacles to prosperity, development must be seen for what it has always been: the outcome of conscious and deliberate policy‖ (Reinert E. S, 2007; XX). Ordinarily, the ways in which politicians, citizens and experts use the concept of development have very divergent and diverse roots in social, political and philosophical discourses. Presently, politics and development discourse draws on complex and sometimes contradictory underlying assumptions about what people are supposed to need in order to live a minimally human life,about the relation between those who have and lack, ill-being, well-being and suffering; and about social life and individual agency in society. Given the morass of themes that need a well-reasoned and coherent account, we are here working on why pursuing a development paradigm from below is a better and more viable option to realising the much need qualitative and quantitative progress within the Kenyan polity. Therefore, in their collective wisdom, Kenyans have identified devolution which has been seen to work elsewhere with significant success to be the new route to implement and institutionalize development. For our case, using it as a tool to advance the core theme of the Kenya 2010 Constitution‘s Bill of Rights, as the right to development, we seek to rally the clarion call on practitioners and the public to constantly keep vigil and protect the excellent ideals espoused by the constitution if they are to take the drive to becoming a ―developed‖ country. Key Words
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