Road Network and Airstrip
The County has a network of 1,132.598 km of classified roads and 435km of rural access roads. About 170.848kms of the roads are tarmacked, 292.55 km graveled, while 669.2 km are earth roads. These roads serve high agricultural potential areas. Though the roads are well distributed, poor maintenance and hilly terrain of the county make them inaccessible during the rainy season.
It is therefore important to ensure that the existing roads are well maintained and more roads are turned to bitumen standards. The tarmacked roads pass through major town centres like Kisii, Ogembo, Nyamache, Gesusu, and Suneka.
The county has one airstrip at Suneka in Kisii South district which need to be expanded to allow landing of commercial jets to facilitate movement from the county to major towns like Kisumu, Eldoret and Nairobi and even outside the country.
Posts and Telecommunications
The county has one major post office in Kisii and ten others in various towns in the county, besides other service providers like G4S, Akamba, Wells Fargo, and Easy Coach. The county is served by five mobile phone providers namely: Telkom, Orange, YU, Safaricom and Airtel. The county has only 20 cyber cafes providing internet services, although many of them are in Kisii town. 90% of the households are connected to mobile phones services and only 20% to landline services.
Financial Institutions
The county is served by ten major banks namely; Barclays Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank, Cooperative Bank, Equity Bank, Bank of Africa, Standard Chartered, CFC Stanbic, Diamond Trust Bank, Eco- Bank and National Bank. There are five major micro-finance institutions namely: K-Rep, Family Bank, Credit Bank, KWFT and Post Bank. The major SACCOs in the county are Mwalimu SACCO, Wakenya Pamoja, Ogembo Tea SACCO, AFC and Kenyenya SACCO.
It is however worth noting that all the above institutions are concentrated in Kisii town hence there is need to open branches in other regions in the county to bring services closer to the people. It should also be noted there is a lot of money in circulation in Kisii town hence there is need to open up a central bank branch in the town to minimize the risk of transporting the money to the nearest branch which is situated in Kisumu.
Education Institutions
The County has 467 primary schools and 334 secondary schools of which two are national schools namely; Kisii Boys and Nyabururu Girls High Schools. There is no national polytechnic in the county. The county has 7 colleges, one training institute, 1university College and 8 university campuses of both public and private universities. These institutions are not adequate to cater for the rising number of youths in pursuit of higher education, therefore there is need to open up more middle level colleges, polytechnics and universities.
Energy Access
The main sources of energy in the county are firewood, paraffin, electricity, charcoal and biogas. The electricity coverage in the county is estimated at about 45%. The low levels of electricity coverage are attributed to high cost of connection including the installation of transformers. Therefore is need to lower the cost in order to enhance rural electrification and at the same time encourage use of renewable energy like the use of biogas and solar energy which are cheap and environment friendly.
Markets and Urban Centres
The main urban centres of the county are 11 namely: Kisii, Ogembo, Suneka, Kenyenya, Nyamache, Marani, Nyamarambe, Masimba, Tabaka, Nyacheki, and Keumbu. There are several market centres spread in the seven constituencies which can be developed in order to decongest Kisii town. 40% of the county population is staying in towns; however, these towns lack basic necessities like sewer system, pipe water and all weather roads making them less attractive to people from major towns like in Nairobi who may want to stay there.
Housing Types
The main housing types in the county are mud houses, stone houses occupied by 2,456 households, brick/block houses occupied by 51,676 households, mud/wood houses occupied by 189,596 households, mud/cement houses occupied by 21,297 households, timber and other houses occupied by 5,637 households. However, there is a shortage of houses in Kisii town due to high population hence there is need to encourage estate developers to take advantage of the market niche. However, despite the shortage of houses, there is no slum in the county.