Published Paper Details:

ABSTRACT The main objective of this paper was to establish the factors affecting governance in the counties with a special reference to Nairobi County. The enactment of the new constitution led to the establishment of devolved county government units, and with the county government came the challenge of how to improve governance in county government. To improve governance in county government a number of donors such as World Bank and DFID have supported various initiatives through the council of governors. The study was guided by two objectives namely; Leadership and ethics and how they affect governance in the counties. The study used a descriptive study design with the target population of the study been 304 respondents from the public service board department, office of the governor and legal department. The study adapted both stratified sampling and purposive sampling in the selection of respondents. The study used a semi-structured questionnaire to collect data from the respondents with the data analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 21 software. The data collected was analyzed through SPSS. Data analyzed through SPSS was presented in form of frequencies, tables, graphs, and charts according to each objective. The study results showed that majority of the respondents (80%) and 82% felt that leadership and ethics affects governance. has a greater effect on the governance in the counties while 20% felt that leadership has a small effect on the governance in the county. The study found out that majority of both ethics (68%) and political alienation (78%) affects governance. The study concludes that training, ethics, attitude, political alienation and leadership affects governance. Thus the study recommends that there is need for county and national government to provide training to staff and establish mechanisms that can promote attitude, ethics, and leadership.