The role of Government policy in Regional development: a case study of Nakuru district

Abstract

Since independence, the Kenyan Government has designed different strategies aimed at achieving spatial balance in development. However by the end of the first decade of independence, equitable development amongst and within consequent regions had still not been achieved. Instead, regional inequalities in development have intensified. This study examined the role of Kenya's regional development policies and strategies in regional development. It adopted spatial equity to assess the success of regional policy.

The study used various social and economic indicators of development such as housing, health, income, occupation, water supply and electric power supply selected on the basis of their appropriateness to Kenya's planning and the availability of data.

Computer based techniques such as the derivation of summary statistics, cross tabulation of data collected from the field, the computation of an index of regional development and simple linear regression analysis were used to analyse data.

The study concluded that there are marked inequalities in regional development in Nakuru District, the most developed regions being the urban areas. The observed inequalities were attributed to Kenya's regional development policies and the strategies.