When former President Mwai Kibaki launched Vision 2030 in 2008, he gave Kenya a future destination. Nearly two decades later, President William Ruto is asking Kenyans to determine where the country should go next.

Launching the National Conversation on Kenya’s Future Beyond Vision 2030 at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi yesterday, Dr Ruto called for a new long-term blueprint anchored in the aspirations of citizens and insulated from the pressures of electoral politics.

The President said the government would provide the platform and resources for the exercise but leave Kenyans to shape its outcome.

The approach marks a deliberate departure from a conventional government-led development plan, placing citizens, experts, young people, business, counties, academia, civil society, religious leaders and other stakeholders at the centre of defining Kenya’s next destination.

The initiative inevitably evokes the legacy of the late President Kibaki, whose administration conceived and launched Vision 2030 as a national framework aimed at transforming Kenya into a globally competitive, newly industrialising, middle-income economy.

But while Kibaki's blueprint established a long-term destination, Dr Ruto is seeking to build broader ownership of what comes next, arguing that the next vision must transcend the administration that initiates it and survive successive political transitions.

Also Read: How President Ruto, Uhuru watered down Vision 2030

“This is not a government project. It is a people’s project,” Dr Ruto declared.

He added that the government would provide the platform and resources necessary for Kenyans to participate but would not dictate the outcome.

“Government is not going to lead the talks. We’ll provide the platform for the people to decide,” he said, inviting Kenyans to bring together a “cocktail of ideas” on the country's future.

The platform brought together political leaders, governors, business leaders, civil society, religious leaders, private sector, academics, students and children, with each offering a different interpretation of what Kenya's future should look like.

Seven-year-old Adrian Ombuni provided perhaps the simplest and most powerful definition.

“My dream for Kenya, is seeing good schools for all children, good hospitals for everyone, clean water for every home, clean roads everywhere and jobs for young people,” he said.

At seven, Adrian is unlikely to have experienced an election campaign, watched a parliamentary debate or studied the intricacies of economic policy.

But his contribution captured the central challenge of the exercise, translating grand national ambitions into improvements that ordinary citizens can see and feel.

His vision also brought a generational dimension to the conversation.

By 2060, Adrian will be 41.

“The Kenya being discussed at KICC, therefore, is not primarily about the politicians occupying State House today. It is about the Kenya that Adrian and millions of other young people will inherit,” Ms Daisy Amdany, a governance, development and women’s rights enthusiast, said.

Also Read: Ruto’s harsh post-2030 Vision reality check and the high stakes behind August 12 launch

At the event, President Ruto openly acknowledged Kibaki's past contribution.

Vision 2030, he said, gave Kenya clear development targets and a framework through which progress could be measured.

Today, he noted, the country has a scorecard showing what has been achieved and where it has fallen short.

And the verdict, according to President Ruto, is mixed.

“Of all the pillars, it’s the economic pillar where we have not done quite well,” he said.

That admission may be one of the most important starting points for the new conversation.

Rather than simply celebrating Vision 2030, the exercise is expected to interrogate it: What worked? What failed? What was overtaken by changing circumstances? And what should Kenya retain as it designs its next long-term development trajectory?

Japanese economist and former IMF official Professor Hiroyuki Hino, speaks at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) during the launch of the National Conversation Beyond 2030 on Wednesday, August 12, 2026.

Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation

Dr Emmanuel Nzai, chairman of the Vision 2030 Delivery Board, offered a strong defence of the outgoing blueprint.

“Vision 2030 has changed the country. It is evidence; it is not talk,” he said, pointing to the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport corridor (LAPSSET) and noting that major investors would not be considering projects such as the proposed Dangote oil refinery in Lamu without the infrastructure foundation created under Vision 2030.

Experts who drew the guidelines for the vision, including Kisumu Governor Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, however, posed the question that now hangs over the entire process: Why now?

His answer was that Vision 2030 has guided Kenya since 2008, but the country must confront what happens after 2027 and beyond 2030. Simply replacing one five-year programme with another, he argued, could leave Kenya trapped in a cycle of projects without a sufficiently clear national destination.

“Vision 2030 has guided our country to some measure of industrialisation, political stability and modern infrastructure,” Prof Nyong’o said. But more must be done to transform Kenya into a high-income, high-value and resilient economy whose wealth is broadly shared among citizens.

Nation established that Prof Nyong’o will lead a yet-to be established multi-sectoral team to draw a roadmap for the conversation, a dialogue to be cascaded to the grassroots.

As the talk begins, one of the strongest themes emerging from the KICC conversation was the need to prevent Kenya's long-term plans from becoming casualties of political succession.

President Ruto argued that Kenya must learn to distinguish between the interests of an election cycle and those of the nation.

Also Read: Beyond Vision 2030: Ruto hands Kenyans the pen to write their future