Millennium Development Goals in Kenya

Kibera Township, Nairobi © Peter Armstrong

The prospects for Kenya meeting its poverty reduction targets set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remain bleak; in 2006 46% of the population was unable to meet essential food and non-food requirements, more than the corresponding figure below this poverty line in 1992. Improvement during the recent years of more dynamic economic growth has been too slow to suggest that the target of halving the 1992 figure could be reached by 2015. Instead inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient has increased and extreme poverty (inability to meet basic food requirements) in 2006 was almost 20%.

Progress toward attaining universal primary education is far more positive thanks to the 2003 decision to grant free access which has had the effect of increasing school enrolment by 2 million children. Despite these gains, regional inequalities are pronounced, particularly in the enrolment of girls in arid and semi-arid regions. There are also concerns about the pressure on educational standards that is bound to follow such sudden demand on capacity.

Cost analysis brutally exposes the gap between hope and reality in the MDG project. A needs assessment carried out in 2005 concluded that the cost of achieving the MDGs in Kenya would be $61 billion over the period to 2015. The level of foreign aid in recent years, somewhat constrained by donor concerns over standards of governance, has amounted to considerably less than $1 billion pa.

Food Security in Kenya

Food reserves in western Kenya © Peter Armstrong

In spite of its glossy image for tourists, the majority of Kenya's land is arid or semi-arid, the home of pastoral and nomadic people living on the margins of subsistence. 20% of the country's children aged under 5 years are underweight, a figure which has not improved since 2003. With only 18% of its territory suitable for farming, Kenya is not self-sufficient in food production and is vulnerable to unstable rain patterns. Successive years of drought up to 2006 compelled the World Food Programme (WFP) to provide support for over 3 million people. Then severe floods towards the end of 2006 affected a further 700,000, most of them cut off from help by inadequate roads. This cycle of drought and floods is known to be especially sensitive to the impact of climate change which looms in the background as a threat to food security.

Man-made shocks act on this vulnerability as much as more familiar extremes of weather. The post-election turmoil in early 2008 disrupted the March grain planting season with 50% of farmers not sufficiently prepared, according to the WFP. With signs of erratic rainfall in the arid regions and rising food prices stoking inflation, there are warnings of potential food insecurity in Kenya by the end of 2008.
Health and HIV/AIDS in Kenya

Anonymous HIV/AIDS question box about HIV/AIDS for Kisumo schoolkids, Kenya © Peter Armstrong

Like many of its neighbours, Kenya has suffered a massive human and economic loss from HIV/AIDS, reducing life expectancy to 52 years. But there are very encouraging signs of success in the fight against the virus – prevalence at the end of 2006 was 5.1%, down from 10% in the late 1990s. The National AIDS Control Council (NACC) reports greater awareness about HIV and significant change in risk behaviour. Antiretroviral drug therapy (ARV) is now available without charge in the public sector with half of those in need receiving treatment. A progressive law is being introduced to deal with discrimination against people living with HIV and to classify unscrupulous infection of a partner as a crime.

There remain important areas of concern such as the neglect of prevention programmes for high risk groups and the disturbing statistic that young women aged 15-24 are more than 5 times likely to become infected than men of similar age, reflecting the weak negotiating context for Kenyan women in sexual relations. Sustainability of the rate of progress is also an issue, given that over 90% of the cost of AIDS programmes is met by donors. NACC recommends that government spending on health should rise to 15% of the national budget.

Patients awaiting treatment, near Mombasa © Peter Armstrong

The commitment and apparent success of donors in tackling HIV/AIDS stands out in contrast to the dispiriting progress in other health indicators. Rates of child and infant mortality have increased remorselessly during the last 15 years and have no prospect of achieving MDG reduction targets. Malaria is the main cause of deaths of these children under 5 years; only 25% of children are protected by bednets; poor standards of paediatric treatment for HIV/AIDS is also a factor. Maternal mortality rates have fallen but remain high at over 400 deaths per 100,000 births. Fees charged by maternity hospitals have now been lifted for those unable to pay but the beleaguered health system remains short of 10,000 nurses.
Politics in Kenya

As the poor have become poorer in Kenya, so the country’s politicians have acquired ever greater comforts. The largest owners of the best land are the extended families of the three presidents who have held office since independence in 1963. A bloated cabinet of ministers enjoy salaries and expense accounts which compare with the gravy train of the European Parliament. Meanwhile, ordinary Kenyans encounter petty bribery in more than 50% of transactions with government departments, the police being the worst offenders, according to Transparency International.

Mwai Kibaki © Daily Nation / Daily Nation (Kenya)

With hindsight, the most serious distortion in Kenyan politics has been the excessive power vested in the office of president. As voters defer more to tribal association than policies, the elected president advances an agenda on the same principle, the distribution of land being the popular currency of political favours. Members of ethnic groups outside the presidential circle become disadvantaged beyond the point of discrimination. The election of Mwai Kibaki in 2002 – which toppled Kenya’s historic ruling party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), was hailed a a new dawn because he promised to break the mould by sharing government with members of his National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) and reducing presidential powers through amendment of the constitution. Kibaki also vowed to reduce government corruption and took a number of positive steps in that direction including significant financing for the new Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC).

Kenyans vote on new Constitution © John Nyaga / United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

However, in reneging on a central promise to award a new post of prime minister to Raila Odinga, the leader of the ethnic Luo group, Kibaki reverted to rule through a clique of his own dominant Kikuyu group and sowed the seeds of distrust which now threaten Kenya’s stability. The KACC was unable to pin corruption charges to senior officials and the Anglo Leasing scandal implicated members of the Kibaki government in a massive fraud. And in a referendum in 2005, Kenyans voted against a new constitution, disbelieving Kibaki’s promise that it would reduce the power of the president.

Odinga broke away from NARC to form the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) which won the largest number of seats in the parliamentary elections of December 2007 on a popular agenda of fairer distribution of the country’s economic growth. All signs pointed to victory for Odinga in the parallel presidential vote until a last minute sleight of hand by the government-appointed electoral commission awarded the election to Kibaki. International observers subsequently referred to “widespread irregularities” and the whose electoral process is now to be investigated by an Independent Review Committee.

Kofi Annan secures agreement between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga © Boniface Mwangi / Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

The explosion of violence which followed, combined with the inability of the two leaders to control it or to enter into constructive dialogue, created international alarm for the stability of a region already racked with conflict. With considerable difficulty, the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, persuaded the two sides to back a National Accord and Reconciliation Act which defines a basis for power-sharing government. A new post of prime minister goes to Raila Odinga as the leader of the dominant party in parliament, and cabinet positions are awarded in proportion to parliamentary representation. The new cabinet, in which ODM members have exactly half of the posts, was sworn in during April 2008. There is no clarity about the date of the next elections nor the extent of executive power awarded to the prime minister. Any signs of wavering in the reconciliation process are likely to be met with donor threats of sanctions against senior government figures.
Conflict in Kenya

Maasai men, Kenya. © Adrian Arbib

Although Kenya enjoys a reputation for relative social stability within East Africa, the latent fractures between over 40 ethnic groups – especially in the context of ambiguous land and mineral rights - have been papered over by successive governments who have taken advantage of the natural desire amongst most Kenyans for pragmatic co-existence. This fragile consensus, further weakened by the pressures of poverty and unemployment, could not survive Mr Kibaki’s electoral gymnastics and a wave of appalling violence was unleashed on Kikuyu communities especially in the Rift Valley where grievances are most acute. Revenge attacks followed and over 1,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, of which over 200,000 remained in emergency camps in May 2008.

The Annan agreement includes the establishment of a Committee of Inquiry into this post-election violence. The picture emerging is one of ethnic-based militia groups controlled possibly by local party officials. Examples of such groups were known before the election. Urban areas have been terrorised by Kikuyu gangs known as Mungiki which exploit corrupt authorities to control territory. By contrast, in the rural Mount Elgon region 150 people have been killed and 80,000 displaced by the actions of the Saboat Land Defence Force (SLDF), apparently over land grievances.

The new government therefore has an urgent priority to address the problems of internal displacement. There may be tensions with humanitarian agencies over the assessment of conditions in which displaced people can return safely. Clearly cautious about prospects for swift and painless reconciliation, the UN has launched the Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan, appealing for $189 million to support and resettle internally displaced persons in Kenya, alongside measures for food security.
Human Rights in Kenya

Maasai farmers protest against climate change © Practical Action

Human rights observers are concerned about the methods adopted by Kenyan security forces to deal with ethnic militia groups. The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights has accused the police of 500 extrajudicial killings in its campaign against the Mungiki; likewise an army offensive in the Mount Elgon region in the west in March 2008 resorted to mass detentions and abusive treatment of supposed SLDF operatives, according to Human Rights Watch. Such incidents may fall outside the brief of a new Truth and Justice Reconciliation Commission which was agreed as part of the Kofi Annan negotiations and which will investigate human rights violations up to the end of 2007. The legislation introducing the Commission has attracted criticism for contemplating amnesties for the most serious crimes.

Kenya’s reputation for sympathetic treatment of refugees from Somalia and Sudan has also become more ambiguous. This may be because the 250,000 refugees are considered to represent the upper limit of capacity, or it may relate to more overt support for US counter-terrorism activities, doubtless rewarded by military aid. Kenya has not only returned asylum-seekers to uncertain fates in Somalia and Ethiopia, but also closed the Somalia border towards the end of 2006. Humanitarian agencies have protested that this action is in breach of obligations under the Geneva Convention for refugees.

Violence against women has finally entered public debate in Kenya with politicians beginning to recognise the seriousness of a culture in which about 50 women are believed to be raped every day, of which few cases are reported and even fewer prosecuted. A new Sexual Offences bill was passed in parliament in 2007 which improves the definition of sexual violence and clarifies penalties for such offences. However, parliament itself proved a bastion of male supremacy in voting out an affirmative gender proposal to award a minimum quota of 50 seats to women.
Information and Media in Kenya

Cyber Café in Kisumo, Kenya © Peter Armstrong

After initial optimism that press freedom would flourish following the 2002 election, the Kibaki government proved somewhat unpredictable, indulging in a spate of media harassment cases. This culminated in a temporary ban on news in the immediate aftermath of the 2007 election. The passage of reform legislation dealing with press freedom during 2007 paves the way for a new Media Council to govern the sector.

Mobile for Good, Kenya © Peter Armstrong

The government is also struggling to allow appropriate space for the potential of new media, as efforts to create a national policy for information and communications technologies have yet to come to fruition. The logistical barriers are formidable; in a country of over 30 million people there are less than half a million subscribers to telephone lines and electricity is a luxury for just 6% in rural Kenya. Radio remains a vital medium whilst the explosion in mobile phone ownership also leapfrogs the shortcomings in infrastructure. Alongside other new technology, mobile phones played an important role in distributing news about the election crisis.



The OneWorld Kenya Guide was first published in January 2006 with a text written by Volunteer Editor Keith Child

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