What the Evidence Shows, What the Gaps Mean, and What Ignoring Them Will Cost Kenya

Abstract

An independent baseline evaluation of the National Infrastructure Fund Act, 2026, completed on the day the Act was signed into law at State House Nairobi. The evaluation scores the Fund at 53 out of 100, sets out where the design is strong and where it leaks, and introduces a Social Return on Investment tracking architecture that did not previously exist in the Kenyan policy debate on the Fund.

Summary of the report

Kenya built at an unprecedented pace between 2013 and 2025 and paid for it largely through external borrowing. The National Infrastructure Fund replaces that borrowing model with an investment portfolio model, pooling privatisation proceeds, pension capital, development finance and climate finance into a professionally managed vehicle. This evaluation asks whether the design can carry the ambition.

The finding is that the Fund is credible, the policy logic is sound, and the governance architecture, though imperfect, carries more safeguards than most comparable funds launched on the continent at this stage. But 53 out of 100 is a Bronze score, and a Bronze fund cannot build a Gold economy.

The report attaches a scenario analysis of what a KSh 5 trillion fund delivers when its design gaps are left unaddressed, and a practical architecture for tracking Social Return on Investment over the Fund's first decade.