Implications of Poverty in Kenya

Kenya is a country in the eastern part of Africa. It is bordered by Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. It has a sea front towards the Indian Ocean. Kenya like many other developing nations and sub Saharan Africa in particular, is characterized by many hardships including: poverty, HIV-AIDS, low levels of industrialization, high levels of unemployment, a high crime rate among others.During the period of the scramble for Africa Kenya became a British protectorate and later a British colony. It attained independence in 1963 and became a republic in 1964. Politics of Kenya takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Kenya is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.After independence, Kenya promoted rapid economic growth through public investment, encouragement of smallholder agricultural production, and incentives for private (often foreign) industrial investment. Kenya is the largest tea market in Africa.In 1993, the Government of Kenya began a major program of economic reform and liberalization. A new minister of finance and a new governor of the central bank undertook a series of economic measures with the assistance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As part of this program, the government eliminated price controls and import licensing, removed foreign exchange controls, privatized a range of publicly owned companies, reduced the number of civil servants, and introduced conservative fiscal and monetary policies. From 1994-96, Kenya's real GDP growth rate averaged just over 4 a year.In 1997, however, the economy entered a period of slowing or stagnant growth, due in part to adverse weather conditions and reduced economic activity prior to general elections in December 1997. In July 1997, the Government of Kenya refused to meet commitments made earlier to the IMF on governance reforms. As a result, the IMF suspended lending for 3 years, and the World Bank also put a $90 million structural adjustment credit on hold. Although many economic reforms put in place in 1993-94 remained, Kenya needed further reforms, particularly in governance, in order to increase GDP growth and combat poverty among the majority of its population.The Government of Kenya took some positive steps on reform, including the 1999 establishment of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Authority, and measures to improve the transparency of government procurements and reduce the government payrollMatters concerning poverty:Poverty can be defined in many contexts. This is because poverty has no universal characteristics. In one instance a healthy person may claim to be poor if he/she has no job yet in another employed person may claim to be poor if he/she has no access to Medicare. What is poverty? Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. And not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. Measuring poverty at the global level:When estimating poverty worldwide, the same reference poverty line has to be used, and expressed in a common unit across countries. Therefore, for the purpose of global aggregation and comparison, the World Bank uses reference lines set at $1 and $2 per day (more precisely $1.08 and $2.15 in 1993 Purchasing Power Parity terms). It has been estimated that in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day. These figures are lower than earlier estimates, indicating that some progress has taken place, but they still remain too high in terms of human suffering, and much more remains to be done. The incidence of poverty in Kenya is not even. Kenya is administratively divided into eight provinces, the incidence of poverty in these provinces vary. Central province is considered the most prosperous although statistics show that around 31 of the population lives in poverty. The 2nd best is Nairobi (the administrative capital) at 44. In 3rd spot is rift valley at 48. In 4th place is coast at57.6. In close succession is eastern at 58, western follows closely at 61, the poverty levels in north-eastern are at 64. Nyanza province is considered the poorest where it is estimated more than 65 of the population live in poverty. Causes:Poverty has many causes, some of them very basic. Some experts suggest, for instance, that the world has too many people, too few jobs, and not enough food. Such basic causes are not quite easily eradicated. In most cases, the causes and effects of poverty interact, so that what makes people poor also creates conditions that keep them poor. It is sometimes claimed that poverty is both a cause and consequence of underdevelopment. Primary factors that may lead to poverty include: Overpopulation: this is a situation of having large numbers of people with too few resources and too little space for them to conduct their economic activities. The unequal distribution of resources in the world economy: this can be traced back to colonialism and imperialism. Many means of production in the third world are owned either by foreign governments or multinationals.Environmental degradation, In many parts of the world, environmental degradation—the deterioration of the natural environment, including the atmosphere, bodies of water, soil, and forests—is an important cause of poverty. In Kenya for instance over dependence on wood-fuel, has greatly reduced the economic importance of forests. Inadequate Education and EmploymentIlliteracy and lack of education are common in poor countries Kenya not being an exception. Although the kibaki government has introduced free primary education it still has many challenges ahead, especially the fact that Governments of developing countries often cannot afford to provide for good public schools, mostly in rural areas due to the fact that such endeavors require huge capital layouts.Individual Responsibility and Welfare DependencyThere are differing beliefs about individual responsibility for poverty. Some people believe that poverty is a symptom of societal structure and that some proportion of any society inevitably will be poor since every body can not be a C.E.O or the president. The way forward to Fighting poverty:Although Kenya has embarked on ambitious efforts to combat poverty these policies should also be aimed at achieving the millennium development goals which are: * Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger * Achieve universal primary education * Promote gender equality and empower women * Reduce child mortality * Improve maternal health * Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases * Ensure environmental sustainability * Develop a global partnership for development.In addition to achieving the MDG’s there are certain priorities that Kenya needs to setup as guided by the Global Monitoring Report 2004 (3.12 Mb PDF).these are: ·improving the enabling climate for private sector activity·strengthening capacity in the public sector and improving the quality of governance ·scaling up investment in infrastructure and ensuring its effectiveness·enhancing the effectiveness of service delivery in human developmentThe Kenyan government also needs to involve its development partners like Britain United States and china as well as multilateral donors so that they may help it in fighting poverty.

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