Reducing extreme poverty is a critical development priority

A section of the densely populated kibra slums in Nairobi. [Photo:File/Standard]

Poverty has been a major development challenge since prevalence has remained high in post-independence Kenya. Statistics indicate that two out of every five Kenyans can’t afford more than Sh100 per day to meet their various basic needs.

The persistence of hunger, unemployment, illiteracy and moral decay such as wanton greed and social exclusion illustrates the difficulty in tackling chronic poverty.

Governments and development practitioners face numerous challenges in creating opportunities, raising people’s capabilities and incomes to address such deprivations.

These include the rising cost of living, population growth, inadequate coordination of poverty eradication initiatives and slow economic growth, which calls for vibrant people-centered policy strategies to fight extreme poverty.

Hunger and malnutrition are major challenges due to insufficient domestic food production which is intricately tied to land issues, availability of farm labour and weaknesses in the way markets operate.

Food insecurity is also attributed to unreliable weather, inappropriate farming methods, poor storage, high consumer prices and marketing. Recurrent food and micro-nutrient deficiency limit economic potential, especially among the youth and the poor.

Diseases

National and county governments need to support agriculture through multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approaches to increase food production and marketable surplus. Many farmers experience difficulties that are within our capacity to overcome such as poor roads and storage.

While agriculture would offer agribusiness opportunities, many youths are not attracted to agriculture because it is relatively uncompetitive, lacks requisite policy support and has limited adaptation of innovative technologies, among other factors.

Diseases continue to form a significant share of the overall burden in the health sector. Access to quality and affordable healthcare still remains a challenge to many people. Many public health facilities are faced with many challenges such as inadequate personnel, low staff morale and lack amenities for diagnosis and treatment.

Self-medication is unfortunately becoming prevalent due to high consultation and laboratory fees charged by health facilities. A significant number of people are seeking medical treatment overseas in countries such as India, Israel and South Africa.

Disease weakens people’s capacity to work and lead a productive life. Providing incentives to promote health insurance schemes, efficiency in supply of drugs, medical equipment and career development will improve overall health outcomes. Modernising the healthcare system must remain top priority for both national and county governments.

Education is fundamental to socio-economic development. Progressive strategies such as free and compulsory primary education, school feeding programmes and provision of learning materials have enabled many children access education. However, transition and completion rates remain below desired targets, especially in the rural areas.

There is need to purposely improve transition from primary to tertiary levels, expand linkages between learning institutions and industry to reduce skills gaps.

Enhancing the performance in science, technical subjects, engineering and mathematics is necessary in transforming Kenya into a middle-income economy in a foreseeable future. Expanding middle-level colleges is essential for meeting demands of a robust and growing economy.

There is need to rethink and create an education system that nurtures and rewards other talents besides academic excellence such as sports, entertainment and performing arts.

We require a robust and competitive manufacturing sector to create jobs and increase the dwindling exports. Manufacturing contributes one tenth of GDP, while the share of manufactured goods in merchandise exports is 35 per cent.

This indicates weak performance, partly attributed to stiff competition from imports, low diversification with high concentration in agro-processing, limited value addition and slow technology uptake. 

Population growth

It is critical to continue to fight the influx of counterfeit goods, target high-value manufacturing, support research and up-take of technology-based manufacturing to increase productivity and export market share. There is also need to emphasise capacity building and facilitate access to finance for medium and small scale enterprises.

High rapid population growth is not conducive for sustainable development. This coupled with slow economic growth and inability to generate broad-based meaningful employment opportunities exacerbates our dependency burden.

The few working population is over-burdened to support many people, which limits savings and investments, which is critical in addressing poverty. Even when it comes to voting, people with good education and employment make better decisions.

Investments in infrastructure such as transport, information and telecommunication technology, energy and security are key to raising productivity, competitiveness and incomes.

Infrastructure provides a mechanism to transmit opportunities, create investments and enhance competitiveness.

Reliable infrastructure enhances efficiency and service delivery to accelerate development, attract local and foreign investments, create employment opportunities, facilitate access to basic services such as water, sanitation services and energy which can improve living standards especially among poor people.

There is need to expand citizens’ access to social services such as healthcare, education, water, housing and electricity. Increased investment in education, healthcare, housing, water, youth, women and the elderly will sustain progress in mitigating extreme poverty and inequalities in different parts of the country.

Institutional reforms are critical to improving competitiveness and creating a conducive environment to support investment.

This will generate more opportunities to positively impact on the quality of life for many people. Continued reforms will enhance institutional oversight role, reduce the cost of doing business, improve financial management systems to reduce waste and build investor and public confidence necessary to support development.

Poverty reduction is possible through investment in social services, institutional reforms and focused initiatives to sustain economic prosperity.

Distributive macroeconomic strategies, co-ordination of poverty eradication initiatives and commitment from political leadership at all levels is also key to tackling poverty. This would generate broad-based employment opportunities and address widespread income inequality.

Good governance is fundamental in driving various pro-poor policies to enhance citizen participation in decision making to maximise on welfare outcomes.

-Omiti ([email protected]) is the Executive Director of Kippra while Nyalienya ([email protected]) is a researcher.