Social Media for Sustainable Development: A Framework for Success in County Governance.

Abstract

The promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya in 2010 ushered in a raft of reforms key among them devolution. The major tenet of devolution is citizen participation in governance; decision-making and implementation factors, functions, responsibilities and resources have been transferred to 47 county governments across Kenya. Since its inception, devolution has faced a myriad of challenges. One of these challenge is that of communication; involving citizens in the decision making process. For devolution to be sustainable, a communication strategy has to be adopted that allows for the citizen and county government to interact in an environment free of the bureaucratic red-tape that characterized governments prior to devolution. Social media enables new approach to county governance that allows stakeholders across board to engage in consensus building and implementation process. This paper explores a framework through which social media can impact on devolution for sustainable development through citizen participation. Specifically, this paper sought to; determine the factors that have influenced the adoption of social media to enhance citizen participation, find out if social media are indeed useful tools for sustainable development and how they can be harnessed to live up to their full potential. The paper applied mixed methodologies and key informant interview was the Principal Information Officer of Migori County, and survey of residents. Despite remarkable efforts in the use of social media to communicate, county governments have failed to fully harness them to guarantee sustainable development. County governments are urged to initiate a social media strategy to enhance dialogue with their stakeholders, create interesting and engaging content as well as monitor and evaluate the performance of these social media strategies.