Poverty in Kenya has many faces that vary substantially across space, time and various socio-economic groups. CULINKE believes that comprehensive, disaggregated, reliable and timely indicators of poverty status across these dimensions is a prerequisite to designing and implementing an all inclusive and effective national pro-poor development agenda and grassroots or “direct” poverty reduction activities.

CULINKE further understands fully and espouses the fact that effective poverty and inequality reduction efforts in Kenya is a very challenging task that requires a systematic and integrated approach. CULINKE has therefore designed pro-poor and targeted inclusive poverty reduction interventions needed to improve the well-being of the poor and the vulnerable.

Kenya is located astride the Equator on the East Coast of Africa and is bisected by the Western side of the Great Rift Valley which slopes down into Lake Victoria from the Mau ranges and Mount Elgon (4,300m) and the eastern part dominated by Mt. Kenya and the Aberdare ranges which rise to altitudes of 5,200m and 4,000m respectively. The country lies between latitudes 5° North and 5° south and between longitudes 34° and 42° east. It borders Ethiopia and Sudan in the north, Uganda in the west, Tanzania in the south, and Somalia and the Indian Ocean in the East. It covers an area of 582,650 km².  Kenya’s capital city is Nairobi with a population of approximately 3 million people. The other major towns are Mombasa, the main port on the Indian Ocean and Kisumu. By 2003 estimates, Kenya's population stood at 31.9 million people with about 30 % living in the urban areas. The annual growth rate is estimated to be 1.7 % per annum, while the population density is about 400 per square kilometre in high-density areas. Poverty levels are still very high at 56.8 % of the population in 2003, while life expectancy at birth has declined to 46.3 years in 2001 from 49.7 years in 1997 largely due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The average illiteracy rate is estimated to be 16.7 % in 2001 and is marginally higher among women, who constitute a slight majority of the population. Kenya has 8 provinces (including Nairobi).

Poverty is widespread and remains a critical development challenge in Kenya.  Based on the 1997 Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS), the number of poor increased from 3.7 million in 1972, through 11.3 million, or 48.4 % of the population, in 1990, to 15 million people, 52 % of Kenya's population, in 1997. By 2001, it is estimated that 17.1 million people, or 55.4 % of the population, live in absolute poverty. Statistics indicate a wide range of poverty incidence between Kenya’s constituencies rising from 16.5% to 84%. The 1994 WHS indicate that three quarters of the poor live in rural areas while the majority of the urban people live in slums and peri-urban settlements. The 1994 WHS further indicated that at the provincial level, North Eastern Province had the highest proportion of people living in absolute poverty (58%), the highest in Kenya, followed by Eastern Province (57%) and Coast (55%). In 1997, Nyanza had the greatest proportion of its population living in poverty (63%). In urban areas, Kisumu town recorded the highest prevalence of poverty (63%). Moreover, more than 50% of the population in all other provinces except for Central (31%) was living in poverty. , followed by Nairobi with 50%. Results of recently concluded poverty mapping in Kenya indicate similar patterns in levels of poverty at the provincial levels, but depict large differentials at the sub-district level. Women in Kenya are poorer than men. The available data indicates that whereas 52.5% of Kenyan males in rural areas and 49.2% of those in urban areas live beneath the poverty line, the figures for women are 54.1% in rural areas and 63.0% in urban areas. The series of demographic and health survey conducted in 2003 (DHS) provided more focused information on the deteriorating trends in almost all indicators of health and socio-economic including rising infant mortality, maternal mortality, morbidity, and malnutrition rates. (1994 and 1997 Welfare Monitoring Survey).

The Welfare Monitoring Surveys monitor the welfare of the people of Kenya. The last one was done in 1997 and forms the basis of this report. By various estimates, people living in poverty constitute more than half of Kenya’s population (UNDP 2002; Narayan and Nyamwaya 1996; GOK 1998). Depending on which source one consults, recent measures of poverty in Kenya range from 42% to 54% --these numbers are 52% in the Welfare Monitoring Survey of 1997, 42% in World Bank (2002), and at least 54% in each district examined by Narayan and Namwaya (1996). The 1997 Welfare Monitoring Survey estimated the absolute poverty line at Kshs 1,239 per person per month and Kshs 2,648 respectively for rural and urban areas.

The Main Messages of The Kenya Growth Report and of Kenya Poverty and Inequality Assessment in a report presented in Nairobi in September 2008 estimates that in 2005/06, almost half of all Kenyans (17m) were unable to meet their daily minimum nutritional and non-food needs; and that monthly individual poverty lines are KShs. 1,562 for rural areas and KShs. 2,913 for the urban areas. The very poor estimated at almost ? could not even afford the minimal food bundle. Poverty is largely concentrated in the rural areas where an estimated 14 million of the rural are poor.

In the third Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) of 2001, Kenyans mainly defined poverty as the inability to meet their basic needs.  Poverty was associated with features such as lack of land, unemployment, inability to feed oneself and one's family, lack of proper housing, poor health and inability to educate children and pay medical bills.  Though different people and communities defined poverty differently, poverty was invariably associated with the inability to meet/afford certain basic needs.

Generally, from both the qualitative and the quantitative poverty assessments, the poor in Kenya tend to be clustered into certain social categories namely: the landless; people with disabilities; female headed households; households headed by people without formal education; pastoralists in drought prone ASAL districts; unskilled and semi-skilled casual labourers; AIDS orphans; street children and beggars; subsistence farmers; urban slum dwellers; and unemployed youth.

Poverty in Kenya worsened in the 1990s, with real per capita income in 2002, at US$ 350, lower than it was a decade earlier. Poverty is widespread and remains a critical development challenge in Kenya. Based on the 1997 Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS), the number of poor increased from 3.7 million in 1972, to 11.3 million, or 48.4 % of the population, in 1990, and to 15 million people, 52 % of Kenya's population, in 1997. By 2001, it was estimated that 17.1 million people, or 55.4 % of the population, live in absolute poverty rising to 56.8 % in 2003. 

Sectoral Context Issues

Kenya has a relatively diversified economy as agriculture accounted for 25 percent of GDP, while manufacturing and services accounted each for 14 percent of GDP in 2004.

Agriculture is the dominant activity of Kenya’s economy, with about 70 % of Kenyans living in rural areas and 75 % depending on agriculture for their livelihood. The sector has been the basis for much of the country’s economic growth, export earnings and employment generation, in addition to the fact that it is also the source of food security and a stimulant to the growth of off-farm employment.

Health standards in Kenya are relatively poor, with life expectancy at birth at 44 years in 2003, compared to 58 years in 1986; infant mortality rate (IMR), under-5 mortality at 69 and 116 per 1,000 live births respectively, and maternal mortality rate at 570 per 100,000 live births in 2000. Approximately 21 % of the population have no access to health services, 50 % to safe water, and 54 percent to sanitation. Health standards of large proportion of the Kenyan population have been undermined by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, increasing incidence of malaria and tuberculosis, and the worsening social economic situation and poverty levels. Malaria is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Kenya accounting for 30 percent of reported illness and 13 percent of all deaths. (KENYA COUNTRY STRATEGY PAPER 2005 – 2007)

Kenya has continued to experience socio-economic pressures such as inequitable patterns of land ownership, a high population growth rate, rural-urban migration of the population, poorly planned urbanization, deforestation, a low level of literacy, low growth of domestic product and high levels of unemployment. Economic performance has deteriorated over recent years with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate falling from 4.8% in 1995 to 1.8% in 1998.

The Government has adopted long, medium and short-term policies to reverse these trends. The long-term policy framework is contained in the Sessional Paper No.2 of 1996 on Industrial Transformation by the year 2020 and the National Poverty Eradication Plan 1999-2015. The former presents policies that will lay the foundation for transforming Kenya into a Newly Industrialized Country (NIC) by the year 2020. The latter provides a national policy and institutional framework for action against poverty.

The medium-term policy framework is contained in the eighth National Development Plan 1997-2001. It focuses on raising economic growth and investment levels, promoting export-oriented industries and restructuring the role of government to focus on providing an enabling environment for economic growth. Kenya’s short-term policy framework is outlined in Policy Framework Papers (PFP) and annual budget statements.

Population Growth

The population of Kenya is projected to increase to 33.3 million by 2003 and 34.6 million by 2005. United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) Kenya 2004-2008, estimates the population to increase by 30% to 36.5 million in 2010. The projections assume a moderate decline in fertility and death rates, and also take into account the AIDS epidemic (Okeyo, et al., 1999). Despite a remarkable decrease over the past decade, Kenya’s annual population growth rate is still one of the highest in the world at 2.6 %. This has three major implications.  Firstly, over 50% of the population is less than 15 years of age, which means that the economy has to support a large and growing number of young people.  Secondly, population growth rates in densely populated regions have led to rural-urban migration.  This has over-stretched resources in the urban areas.  Decreasing standards of land management, infrastructure, water and sanitation and municipal services have led to a steady decline on health and environmental standards as well as an increased vulnerability to human-made and natural disasters.  Thirdly, there has also been a noticeable rural-rural migration to the ASAL areas, affecting the ecosystem of these regions and rendering them more vulnerable to disasters such as drought and environmental degradation.

Poverty

The impact of disasters on the population is greatly influenced by the incidence of poverty.  The ability to cope with disasters or the level of a community’s disaster management capacity can be greatly limited by the incidence of poverty in the community.

According to the 1994 Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS II) results, 48% of the rural population is food poor (National Poverty Eradication Plan-NPEP, 1999-2015).  Equally, in the same report, 47% of the rural population and 29% of the urban population were identified as absolute poor.  A large number of the poor are living on either subsistence agriculture or employment in the urban informal sector.  The condition of poverty is illustrated by factors such as large families, lack of productive skills, low levels of education, ill health, high incidence of AIDS and other disabilities and changes in social structures leading to the breakdown of facilities and support systems.  These factors radically increase the vulnerability of the poor to natural hazards and human-made disasters.  The recent El Niño (1997-1998) and the heavy rains of 1999 show that those most affected by these natural occurrences are the poorer sectors of the population living in slums and squatting along flood and landslide areas.  Poverty also seriously affects their resilience to disasters given the constant challenge for survival, which many face.

One-third of the rural households are female headed, with as many as 60% of these having no male support.  Female-headed households are especially vulnerable due to external factors such as the discriminatory access to the tenure of land in rural areas, housing in urbanized areas and their inability to access the job market on favorable conditions.

Natural Resources and the Environment

Kenya is characterized by its limited natural resources especially for water, minerals and agricultural land.  This condition, associated to the fragility of its ecosystems and vulnerability to increased pressure by human activities, raises critical environmental issues related to bio-diversity, deforestation, desertification, drought, floods and pollution.  Forest resources and soil cover are being depleted due to the rapid increase in population and the demand for human settlements and agricultural land, grazing, sourcing of construction materials, food, fuel-wood, essential oils and herbal medicines.

Quote:-

 “Poverty may never be made history. But we can ask whether a precondition for its sharp reduction is that powerful professionals become more participatory and gets closer to and learn more from those who live their lives in poverty; and then act on what they experience, learn and feel.” - Robert Chambers