By Benadeta Mwaura - Reporter
Kenya, August 18, 2026 - The government has ordered an independent value-for-money assessment of the KSh21 billion Second Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project (KISIP2) as the programme approaches the end of its implementation period.
The State Department for Housing and Urban Development is seeking an independent consultant to assess the project's performance, establish whether it achieved its development objectives and determine whether the targeted communities benefited from the investments.
The review will cover interventions financed by both the World Bank and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and will include a beneficiary assessment and an end-of-programme evaluation.
KISIP2 was approved by the World Bank in 2020 with a US$150 million International Development Association credit, equivalent to about KSh19.4 billion at current exchange rates. The Kenyan government was expected to provide a further US$15 million in counterpart funding, while AFD later committed €45 million (about Ksh6.9 billion) in additional financing.
The programme was designed to improve access to basic services in informal settlements, strengthen residents' security of tenure and build the government's capacity to upgrade informal settlements. Its interventions include roads, drainage, water, sanitation, lighting, land surveying and the processing of tenure documents.
The assessment comes as KISIP2 reaches the end of its six-year implementation period.
AFD lists the programme's implementation period as running from August 2020 to August 2026, with Kenya's Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development as the beneficiary.
The government now wants to establish whether the investment translated into measurable improvements for residents of the targeted settlements and whether the institutions responsible for informal-settlement upgrading were strengthened.
The review will therefore go beyond checking whether projects were constructed.
It will examine whether the interventions produced the intended development outcomes and whether communities actually benefited from them.
The second phase followed the first Kenya Informal Settlements Improvement Project, which began in 2011.
According to AFD, KISIP1 improved living conditions for about 1.3 million residents across 14 counties, while supporting the issuance of more than 125,000 tenure permits and the construction of about 220 kilometres of access roads.
The government subsequently expanded the programme through KISIP2, targeting further improvements in informal settlements while placing greater emphasis on integrated settlement upgrading and institutional capacity.
The official KISIP programme says the second phase is being implemented with financing from the Government of Kenya, World Bank and AFD.
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The independent review will examine the project's overall performance and whether its development objectives were achieved.
It will also assess the benefits received by target communities and whether KISIP2 strengthened the government's ability to plan and implement informal-settlement upgrading programmes.
That makes the exercise particularly important because the programme involved substantial development financing over several years.
For residents, the ultimate measure will not simply be the amount spent but whether investments resulted in better roads, drainage, water and sanitation services, improved security of tenure and better living conditions.
For the government and development partners, the assessment could provide evidence on which interventions delivered the greatest impact and where future informal-settlement programmes The review also comes as Kenya continues to pursue large-scale housing and urban-development programmes.
The State Department for Housing and Urban Development currently lists slum upgrading and shelter among its core functions, alongside affordable housing and urban development.
The experience of KISIP2 could therefore inform future government and donor-funded programmes targeting informal settlements.
The assessment is not, by itself, an indication that the KSh21 billion programme failed or that funds were misappropriated.
Rather, it is a formal end-of-programme exercise intended to establish what was achieved, who benefited and whether the investment delivered value for money.
With the programme now reaching the end of its implementation period, the findings of the independent assessment will provide the clearest picture yet of whether KISIP2 translated billions of shillings in development financing into lasting improvements for Kenya's informal-settlement communities.