While our analysis provides useful insights into service levels and performance across sectors and cities in Kenya specifically, the results of our analysis have implications that extend well beyond urban Kenya. We argue that our data provide compelling evidence for the importance of defining new measures of access that take into account how services are actually being used. This requires looking beyond easy-tomeasure indicators of nominal access, to capture additional data on both effective and quality-adjusted access.

Our efforts to capture quality dimensions of service build on numerous ongoing initiatives at the sectoral level. The uniqueness of our research lies in its attempt to develop a more systematic, comprehensive and comparable reporting of quality across sectors. Our research introduces a common language for discussing service access and performance across sectors in a manner that key stakeholders can meaningfully interpret. The results can be broadly applied in both policy and practice. For example, at a policy level this common ‘language’ could be used by the Minister of Finance to assess how services and Ministries are performing relatively and to identify key priorities in each sector. At a more granular level within a country or city these indicators can be used to highlight which cities/neighborhoods are doing poorly relative to others. Within a sector it can be used to identify development needs and the relative priority of expansion versus quality improvement efforts. It can also be analyzed to develop a more nuanced understanding of demand and willingness to pay for different types and quality of services, and for identifying factors that contribute to expanding access.

Our research demonstrates the value of collecting, compiling and analyzing indicators for each of the three levels of access for all cities/countries. As a next step, it would be useful to test and adapt this methodology, expanding it to other countries and testing alternative faster and more economical means of collecting data that do not rely on large-scale expensive household surveys. In particular, it would be worthwhile to investigate ways of incorporating observational data (e.g. nightlights to look at coverage and quality of infrastructure services).

Finally, in this paper we have selected our own indicators of what each level of service – nominal, effective, and quality-adjusted – may look like for each sector. These indicators could be modified to reflect specific circumstances and contexts, while also balancing the need for consistency and comparability across countries and regions. The power that this kind of easily-digestible, demand-side data offer is that they are accessible, facilitate discussions and relate well to policy. The data therefore enable more participatory discussion on investment priorities while also offering metrics against which public and private service providers can be held accountable. As countries around the world set targets for their SDGs, it is timely that we revisit how we measure access. Our research suggests that it is crucial for policy makers to set targets that extend beyond nominal access, to at least measures of ‘effective’ access, while explicitly also addressing appropriate quality and performance standards for their cities or countries.

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