Temporary Urban Statecraft: Municipal Override and Crisis Intervention by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services

Abstract

On March 18, 2020 – after long-standing tensions between Kenya’s national and Nairobi’s county governments – the new Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) was instated, resulting in the transfer of several government mandates from the Nairobi County government to NMS due to the alleged incapacity of the county/ municipal government. This unprecedented power transfer and override of municipal autonomy was only a temporary stopgap until late 2022. However, by placing NMS directly under the President of Kenya, the creation of NMS has challenged the constitutional devolution of (urban) governance in Kenya while resulting in rapid but incoherent and disconnected urban development projects. Moreover, armed with presidential momentum and coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, NMS received significant national and supranational funding for various shovel-ready projects, such as World Bank-supported interventions in the water sector. Focusing on NMS's interventions in urban water services and mobility projects, we present the case of NMS as an example of temporary urban statecraft through which a national government, supported by external funding, intervenes in the urban governance of a county/ municipality. Finally, we critically present and assess the political, governmental, and urban-infrastructural opportunities and pitfalls associated with such a (temporary) override, and how the short-lived reign of NMS may represent an unusual or paradigmatic example of urban statecraft in contemporary Africa.