Senate County Resolutions Tracker: What Official Records Reveal About World Bank-Funded Plan

A proposed digital system to track decisions involving Kenya’s county governments has raised questions about how resolutions are recorded and followed up. But the tender details circulating online need clarification before a new Senate project can be confirmed.

The State Department for Devolution’s official tender records show that a consultancy for an Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) resolutions tracker was advertised in February 2025 under the Second Kenya Devolution Support Programme (KDSP II), which receives World Bank financing.

The tender was published on 19 February 2025 and closed on 11 March 2025. It sought a consulting firm to develop the tracker, with the advert listing reference number KE-SDD-446739-CS-CQS.

However, the official records reviewed do not confirm a new notice issued on 27 October 2026 seeking an individual consultant to develop a separate database for county assembly resolutions, or a deadline of 12 November 2026.

That distinction matters for prospective applicants and anyone seeking to understand what the government intends to procure.

A separate Senate tracker already exists

Kenya’s Senate already operates an online tracker covering legislation from the country’s 47 county assemblies.

The public platform provides information on county Bills and enacted legislation. The Senate says it was established to help share information on devolution and support its constitutional mandate.

The existing platform and the proposed system described in the circulating notice should not automatically be treated as the same project.

A legislation tracker records the progress of Bills and laws. A resolutions tracker may have a different purpose, depending on the decisions it is designed to record, the institutions involved and how progress is monitored.

The February 2025 tender concerned intergovernmental relations resolutions involving bodies and processes including the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee, the Intergovernmental Sector Forum and alternative dispute resolution. It was not described in the published advert as a new Senate database for county assembly resolutions.

What the World Bank-funded programme is designed to do

The Second Kenya Devolution Support Programme is a four-year initiative intended to improve how counties manage finances, coordinate government functions and account for public resources.

Its three main areas of work cover sustainable financing and expenditure management; intergovernmental coordination, institutional performance and human resource management; and oversight, participation and accountability.

Better information systems can support those objectives by making government decisions easier to trace and helping institutions coordinate their work.

But the value of a digital tracker depends on more than creating a database. Its effectiveness would also depend on whether participating institutions submit complete information, update records promptly and act on decisions that remain unresolved.

Why tracking county decisions matters

Article 96 of the Constitution gives the Senate responsibility for representing counties, protecting their interests and those of county governments, and overseeing national revenue allocated to counties.

County assemblies also play a central role in county-level oversight. A system that records decisions and their status could help improve access to information, provided its mandate is clearly defined and the relevant institutions use it consistently.

For citizens, the practical test would be whether the system makes it easier to find out what was decided, which institution is responsible and whether any action followed.

For now, however, the procurement details in the supplied notice remain unverified. The State Department for Devolution’s official tender records should be checked for any new advertisement and its terms before applicants rely on the stated November deadline.

Until that confirmation is available, the February 2025 tender is the related procurement that can be substantiated from the official records reviewed.

About the Author

Maureen Onyango is a journalist passionate about storytelling, life coaching and spiritual lessons. She studied at the Kenya Institute of Management and enjoys telling stories that inform, inspire and empower communities.