poverty and vulnerability

The Government recognizes that poverty and vulnerability pose significant risks to the people of Kenya, challenging the country’s social and economic foundations. About 46% of the population of Kenya lives below the national poverty line while 19% live in extreme poverty. The high poverty levels are as a result of several factors including, but not limited to; natural disasters, environmental degradation, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, unemployment, a lack of income in old age and a breakdown of traditional safety net mechanisms.

Kenya, like most developing countries, is actively pursuing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, current progress towards the MDGs indicates that they are unlikely to be met partly because of inadequate access to social services, especially for the poor in our society. This therefore calls for a social protection strategy to reverse the trend.

Social Protection in Kenya is defined as: “policies and actions for the poor and vulnerable which enhances their capacity to cope with poverty, and equips them with skills to better manage risks and shocks.” The Government has developed this Strategy to guide its implementation of activities aimed at addressing the needs of the poor and vulnerable in the next five years. This Strategy builds on other related government strategy documents, namely the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of 2001, the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation (ERS) of 2003 and the Kenya Vision 2030 of 2008.

Kenya’s economic growth has averaged 5.6% over the last 3 years.The Kenya Vision 2030 - the new development blueprint for the period 2008 to 2030 - has an ambitious goal of achieving an average growth rate of 10% per annum for the next 25 years. However, the Government acknowledges that economic growth alone is insufficient to achieve a meaningful improvement in the quality of life of the poor and vulnerable members of the population. Inequality in Kenya is fairly high; the Gini index is 42.5 and the richest 20% of the population consume 49.1% of GDP.  It is, therefore, critically important that mechanisms to tackle poverty and vulnerability directly are given priority if an improvement in social indicators is to be registered.

Based on an assessment of poverty, vulnerability, risk factors and inputs from the national and provincial consultations held in 2007/8 as part of the development of this Strategy, the objectives to be addressed by the Strategy are to:

§ Enhance the long-term capacity of poor and vulnerable households to meet their basic consumption needs and to improve their access to basic services;

§ Contribute to the building of human capital as a way of addressing the underlying causes of poverty and breaking the cycle of inter-generational poverty;

§ Promote strategies that will (a) reduce the likelihood of an adverse risk, (b) reduce the impact of the future risk, and (c) relieve the impact of the risk once it has occurred; and

§ Mobilise resources and effectively coordinate their use to address poverty, vulnerability and risk management at the national level.

In the short and medium-term, the Strategy will meet the immediate needs of the poorest and most vulnerable members of the society. This means focusing primarily on the 19% of the population that is living in extreme poverty and those most vulnerable to income poverty due to external shocks. Given the limited financial and human resources in the country, the initial Social Protection interventions will begin where the need is greatest.

In the long-term the Strategy will facilitate the development of a comprehensive Social Protection system. This system should provide interventions that are protective, preventive, promotive and transformative, and that enhances risk management. Although in the long-run the multi-faceted nature of Social Protection will mean coverage of most of the population, its priority will remain on those identified as poor and vulnerable to poverty.

The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) has undertaken several studies on poverty in Kenya. At the household level, poverty is found to decline rapidly depending on the level of education of the head of household, and to rise with household size and involvement in agricultural activities. Extreme poverty is found to decline rapidly as farm households shift to non-agricultural activities. Household data also shows that older people in rural areas are more likely to be poor than other age groups.5 At the macro-level, a decline in national income and employment and a rise in inequality are associated with higher levels of poverty.

Vulnerability is the likelihood of falling into poverty. It is dynamic in nature and provides further insight into the nature of poverty. In addition to providing support to those in a state of poverty, Social Protection is also about addressing the risks that can cause people to fall into poverty. These include natural disasters, unemployment and sickness. Assessing vulnerability can strengthen the impact of Social Protection by providing a pre-emptive component to addressing poverty.

A study using the Welfare Monitoring Surveys (WMS) of 1994 and 1997 established that rural households faced a 39% chance of becoming poor in future. Households in arid areas were more vulnerable than households in non-arid areas. The main risk factor in arid areas was the unpredictability of rainfall while in non-arid areas malaria was the main problem. The study also found that possession of livestock – cattle, sheep and goats – was largely ineffective in mitigating the impact of natural disasters. However, livestock in arid areas was found to have some impact in alleviating the impact of household level shocks such as death and unemployment. Based on policy simulations, the study established that interventions aimed at reducing the incidence of malaria, promoting adult literacy, improving market accessibility, and promoting off-farm employment prospects would significantly reduce vulnerability among non-pastoralist communities.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) provides a framework for Social Protection that separates measures into 4 categories – protective, preventive, promotive and transformative measures. Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler build on the ILO framework to provide a framework with an additional category referred to as transformative measures.

Protective measures: aim to provide relief from deprivation. These include social assistance measures such as social pensions and social services (for example, free primary education).

Preventive measures: these are used to prevent deprivation that may result from a shock. This refers to formal social insurance mechanisms such as health and unemployment insurance and informal mechanisms like funeral societies.

Kenya must tackle the basics to get economy back

Kenya’s monetary policy is at a crossroads, the exchange rate volatile and prices of essential goods on a steady rise. After nearly seven years of relative calm, the economy appears to have been invaded by the forces of destruction that cannot be contained by the known instruments of policy.

Kenya is for the first time in nearly five years back to a point where the Central Bank cannot robustly defend the shilling – its reserves having been eroded to a four-year low even as the trade deficit continues to widen.

Government finances are not in good shape either raising the need for more borrowing. This is the reason that contrary to all expectations, the Central Bank Wednesday released more shillings into the market to ease liquidity as it prepared to borrow Sh10 billion from the same market.

Adding impetus to the currency troubles are the acute supply shortages in key segments of the economy. A prolonged drought has drastically reduced the amount of cheaper hydro-electric power that is on the national grid, forcing the country to rely on thermal power that has more than doubled the cost of electricity to consumers.

Drought has also caused acute supply shortages of key consumer goods such as sugar, maize meal and milk sending prices to unprecedented levels.

These shortages have to be dealt with through importation of whatever is in short supply using the weak shilling. That adds more pressure on the local currency repeating the circle all over.

A casual look at these challenges may give the impression that they are temporary.

The reality is that they are the fruits of monopolization of the national policy making machinery by a short-sighted elite as is manifest in the annual allocation of resources via the national budget.

It has become clear that the root cause of all this lies in our collective refusal to recognise that no meaningful development will take place in Kenya until we get the basics such as feeding ourselves and meeting our energy needs

The Economist poll of forecasters

Growth prospects in parts of Europe have diminished drastically in the past 12 months. In May 2011 our forecasters reckoned that Spanish and Italian GDP would grow by over 1% in 2012; now they expect both economies to shrink by 1.7%. The outlook for other European countries has worsened too, thanks to worries over contagion, default and the break-up of the single-currency area. While inflation could hurt the likes of Italy, where consumer prices are expected to balloon as energy costs and taxes rise, Switzerland is threatened by deflation. The appreciation of the Swiss franc creates deflationary pressure by driving down the price of imports. And falling prices can discourage consumption and increase real borrowing costs.

ICC Ruling not likely to dent business climate in Kenya

The ICC ruling on Kenya’s post election violence case was much awaited for and the business community was equally keen on the impact it could have on business. The days leading to the ruling were branded by most Kenyan media as highly tense, a factor that caught the attention of business as people waited to see what sort of reaction the country would display.

But in what seemed to be a departure from the culture of violent reactions, the country absorbed the ruling and later proceeded with business as usual. Perhaps the most amazing picture of the post ICC ruling is captured in the first few minutes soon after Judge Ekaterina TRENDAFILOVA concluded the ruling summary. People from different parts of the country spoke in near-unison, urging fellow Kenyans to observe peace above everything else. No violence erupted in any part of the country, even in the home towns of the confirmed individuals. Some of their constituents expressed disappointment though, but choosing to tone down their resentments and overall opting to leave it to the justice system. The Police played a crucial role as they closely watched, ready to avert any acts of violence.

“I have learnt never to follow politicians again”, said a man on the streets of Nairobi. “I do not wish to see what happened in 2007/2008 happen again”, a victim of the post election violence said. Religious leaders equally came out to call on Kenyans to accept the results, however painful some may find them. President Mwai Kibaki asked the country to maintain peace, promising that all Internally Displaced Persons will eventually be settled. He also directed the Attorney General to set up a legal team to study the ruling.

Impact on Kenya’s Economy

Several economic experts who have been monitoring the impact of the Kenyan ICC case have indicated that the immediate post ruling signs point to a non-interrupted business environment in Kenya. Their observations are founded on the fact that Kenyans have already gotten back to business as usual, and the situation is not likely to change because if there was anything worse it should have happened on the day the ruling was read. But the analysts have also pointed out that some overly cautious investors may decide to adopt a wait and see attitude, just to see how the politics surrounding the case will play out in the coming days.

All in all, Kenyans must be congratulated for having chosen to walk the path of peace. Kenya should be proud that the citizenry is finally realizing that respect for human life must always supersede emotions and individual interests. But this is just the beginning, and as most peace minded Kenyans have pointed out, a resolve to sustain this thinking should reverberate throughout the country even as it prepares for another test yet-the forthcoming general election.

If we always feel cheated in a relationship this is a must read…

In a relationship, married or not… You should read this.

Marriage.
“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.
Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?
I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!
With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.
The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.
In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.
This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.
I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.
My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.
On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.
On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.
She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.
Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.
Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.
But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.
She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.
That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband….
The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!
If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you.
If you do, you just might save a marriage. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

methods for becoming happier34:

1.              If you suffer from serious illness, depression, anxiety, paranoia, schizophrenia, or other serious problems, seek professional help first. Here's how.

2.              Even if you don't need professional help, you may benefit from some self-exploration and initial guidance from a reductionistic, naturalistic counselor like Tom Clark.

3.              Develop the skills and habits associated with extroversion. First, get some decent clothes and learn how to wear them properly. If you're a guy, read these books. If you're a girl, ask your girlfriends or try these books. Next, learn basic social skills, including body language. If you're really introverted, practice on Chatroulette orOmegle first. Next, spend more time with other people, making small talk. Go to meetups and CouchSurfinggroup activities. Practice your skills until they become more natural, and you find yourself enjoying being in the company of others. Learn how to be funny and practice that, too.

4.              Improve your self-esteem and optimism. This is tricky. First, too much self-esteem can lead to harmful narcissism.³⁵ Second, it's not clear that a rationalist can endorse several standard methods for improving one's self esteem (self-serving bias, basking in reflected glory, self-handicapping)³⁶ because they toy with self-deception and anti-epistemology. But there are a few safe ways to increase your self-esteem and optimism. Make use of success spirals, vicarious victory, and mental contrasting, as described here.

5.              Improve your agreeableness. In simpler terms, this basically means: increase your empathy. Unfortunately, little is currently known (scientifically) about how to increase one's empathy.³⁷ The usual advice about trying to see things from another's perspective, and thinking more about people less fortunate than oneself, will have to do for now. The organization Roots of Empathy may have some good advice, too.

6.              Improve your conscientiousness. Conscientiousness involves a variety of tendencies: useful organization, strong work ethic, reliability, planning ahead, etc. Each of these individual skills can be learned. The techniques for overcoming procrastination are useful, here. Some people report that books like Getting Things Done have helped them become more organized and reliable.

7.              Develop the habit of gratitude. Savor the good moments throughout each day.³⁸ Spend time thinking about happy memories.³⁹ And at the end of each day, write down 5 things you are grateful for: the roof over your head, your good fortune at being born in a wealthy country, the existence of Less Wrong, the taste of chocolate, the feel of orgasm... whatever. It sounds childish, but it works.⁴⁰

8.              Find your purpose and live it. One benefit of religion may be that it gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you'll have to find out for yourself what drives you. It may take a while to find it though, and you may have to dip your hands and mind into many fields. But once you find a path that strongly motivates you and fulfills you, take it. (Of course, you might not find one purpose but many.) Having a strong sense of meaning and purpose has a wide range of positive effects.⁴¹ The 'find a purpose' recommendation also offers an illustration of how methods may differ in importance for people. 'Find a purpose' is not always emphasized in happiness literature, but for my own brain chemistry I suspect that finding motivating purposes has made more difference in my life than anything else on this list.

9.              Find a more fulfilling job. Few people do what they love for a living. Getting to that point can be difficult and complicated. You may find that doing 10 other things on this list first is needed for you to have a good chance at getting a more fulfilling job. To figure out which career might be full of tasks that you love to do, a RIASECpersonality test might help. In the USA, O*NET can help you find jobs that are in-demand and fit your personality.

10.         Improve your relationship with your romantic partner, or find a different one. As with finding a more fulfilling job, this one is complicated, but can have major impact. If you know your relationship isn't going anywhere, you may want to drop it so you can spend more time developing yourself, which will improve future relationships. If you're pretty serious about your partner, there are many things you can do to improve the relationship. Despite being touted widely, "active listening" doesn't predict relationship success.⁴² Tested advice for improving the chances of relationship success and satisfaction include: (1) do novel and exciting things with your partner often⁴³, (2) say positive things to and about your partner at least 5 times more often than you say negative things⁴⁴, (3) spend each week writing about why your relationship is better than some others you know about⁴⁵, (4) qualify every criticism of your partner with a review of one or two of their positive qualities⁴⁶, and (5) stare into each other's eyes more often.⁴⁷

11.         Go outside and move your body. This will improve your attention and well-being.⁴⁸

12.         Spend more time in flow. Drop impossible tasks in favor of tasks that are at the outer limits of your skillset. Make easy and boring tasks more engaging by turning them into games or adding challenges for yourself.

13.         Practice mindfulness regularly. When not in flow, step outside yourself and pay attention to how you are behaving, how your emotions are functioning, and how your current actions work toward your goals. Meditationmay help.

14.         Avoid consumerism. The things you own do come to own you, in a sense. Consumerism leads to unhappiness.⁴⁹ Unfortunately, you've probably been programmed from birth to see through the lens of consumerism. One way to start deprogramming is by watching this documentary about the deliberate invention of consumerism by Edward Bernays. After that, you may want to sell or give away many of your possessions and, more importantly, drastically change your purchasing patterns.

Note that seeking happiness as an end might be counterproductive. Many people report that constantly checking to see if they are happy actually decreases their happiness - a report that fits with the research on "flow." It may be better to seek some of the above goals as ends, and happiness will be a side-effect.

Remember: Happiness will not come from reading articles on the internet. Happiness will come when you do the things research recommends.

Good luck!

WB predicts gloom in Kenya will end in 2012

A week to the end of the year, trend analysis shows Kenya has posted poorest economic growth since 2009.

This has been attributed to the rising cost of living largely driven by high cost of energy, food and a weak shilling. But all is not gloom for the economy next year.

The World Bank predicts that the economy will grow by 4.3 per cent this year, down from earlier predictions because of what experts have explained as prevalence of economic shocks.

However, next year is expected to have better performance with an estimated growth rate of five per cent if inflation and exchange rates are contained.

Senior economist Jane Kiringai said Kenya needs to urgently rein-in inflation and suppress growth in debt.

Across the board, analysts are optimistic that the economy will perform better in the coming year given that the unrest in the Arab countries where the bulk of petroleum products comes from is nearly settled which means relatively stable prices of oil, a major components of Kenyan imports.

“With the expected rains and political stability coming back into the oil producing countries, the future looks promising,” said Jacob Oduor a senior analyst at Kenya Institute of Public Policy and Research.

The economic turmoil this year did not come as a surprise to Kenyans who have watched their cost of living rise in the first 11 months.

Inflation stood at 19.2 per cent in November, almost four times more from the 5.42 per cent in January.

The country’s economic troubles in 2011 were documented and released three weeks ago in a meeting held in Nairobi attended by economists, policy makers, the public and private sector as well as journalists.

Among the thorny issues that came out in the report was the depreciation of the Kenya shilling against the US dollar and other world’s major currencies.

The shilling started to cede ground to the dollar in early May when it traded at Sh84 against the green back.

The slide was gradual, but in July the trend gained pace, with the shilling hitting the Sh90 mark to the dollar by the middle of that month.

By September, the local currency was in a free fall and by mid-October, it took a swan dive, hitting Sh107.

The currency troubles pushed the head of state and Parliament to intervene – with great discomfort to the Central Bank and Treasury.

President Kibaki turned to the International Monetary Fund for a Sh25 billion loan as additional financing to fix the shilling while Parliament formed a special committee to investigate the currency volatility which put the blame squarely in the hands of the Central Bank of Kenya for failing to intervene when it mattered most and commercial banks for taking advantage of the existing loopholes in regulation to make a kill at the expense of the economy.

“Most of the sectors registered slower growth during the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same quarter of 2010, indicating that the effects of the slowdown had started spreading across the economy,” said the Kenya National Bureau of statistics in the third quarter economic update.

It is now highly unlikely that Treasury’s projections posting annual growth rate of 5.3 per cent this year will be met given that the expansion of the GPD has fallen below five per cent in the first three quarters of the year.

The economy grew by 4.9 per cent in the first quarter and 4.9 per cent in the second.

This is compounded by the fact that the country is operating on a negative current account which simply means that our exports, mainly agricultural products are less that our imports.

Economists such as Wolfgang Fengler of the World Bank warned that unless Kenya balances its economy through stronger exports, it may not achieve its projected growth rates.