Key facts: Kenya

Last updated: December 2008

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DFID: Working to reduce poverty in Kenya

Making aid effective | Governance | Health and HIV/AIDS | Education | Humanitarian aid | Social protection | Trade/growth | Millennium Development Goals

Since 2001, DFID has spent more than £170 million in Kenya, making the UK its second-largest bilateral donor. In the financial year 2007/08, we provided £50 million in assistance. DFID focuses on education, health & HIV/AIDS, and governance, and we work with other partners in private-sector development, land reform, reform of the financial and public sectors, and statistical capacity building. We have also responded to a series of humanitarian disasters, including floods, drought, disease and the recent political and ethnic violence.

Making aid effective

DFID does not provide general budget support to Kenya. Instead its funds are managed by reliable financial management agents or through special government accounts, or are provided direct to civil society. In this way, financial risks are minimised while key benefits are delivered to poor Kenyans and a real contribution is made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, see below).

Kenya experienced political instability and violence following disputed general elections in December 07. Following the establishment of a Coalition Government, DFID continues to maintain a cautious graduated approach in line with the broader donor community. A new country plan for DFID’s work is being developed and is expected in early 2009. In the meantime DFID remains committed to Kenya and is supporting opportunities to strengthen the political settlement and essential state functions and promote long-term growth and development.

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Governance

Corruption remains a significant problem in Kenya. The Transparency International Corruption Index ranks the country 142nd out of 163 in this respect.

DFID helps to tackle corruption through:

• support to civil society organisations such as Transparency International, which produces an annual Bribery Index
  
• improving political accountability
  
• strengthening systems of accountability and transparency
• civic education.

DFID’s Political Empowerment Programme seeks to strengthen government accountability to citizenry by:

• Supporting institutions and processes which demand pro-poor policies. This includes civic education; promoting women’s participation in the political process; voter education; and domestic elections observation
• funding of a number of influential NGOs promoting accountability and transparency
• support to the media.

DFID also supports:

• the Kenyan Parliament, especially the improvement of committee oversight through training and technical assistance provided by the State University of New York and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy
• the development and implementation of a public financial management and accountability reform programme, which includes the computerisation and integration of financial information and improved procurement systems
• the government of Kenya’s public sector reform programme ‘Results for Kenya’, which includes contracts based on results for senior civil servants, a rapid results initiative for key government departments and transformatory leadership
• improvement in the collection and analysis of statistical data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. A national census is currently planned for August 2009.

DFID is also the largest funder of the Annan process which brokered a peace agreement following disputed general elections in December 2007. The Annan-mediated deal brokered four major processes of review and commissions which included the establishment of an Independent Review Commission (IREC) on the conduct of the elections, a commission into the post-election violence and a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation commission.

Two of these have now completed their work and handed over reports. The UK has in public fully supported commission recommendations, together with most of the international community.

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Health and HIV/AIDS

Currently around 50% of DFID Kenya’s aid is allocated to health and HIV/AIDS , focusing on health systems, malaria, reproductive health and strengthening the delivery of essential health services.

Malaria: There has been significant progress in the fight against malaria:

• Of children who use insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs), 44% fewer die of malaria compared to non-users. By March 2009, as a result of our support (£59 million over six years), 12.8 million new ITNs will have been distributed in Kenya.
• Additional DFID support is contributing to the roll-out of new anti-malarial combination therapies, improving the response to epidemics, and to the funding of net retreatment and communication programmes.
• Annual malaria hospital admissions have been reduced by 57% in the last seven years.
  

HIV/AIDS: Despite a declining prevalence rate, there is no reason to be complacent. Some 60,000 new infections are reported each year, and there are significant variations by sex, location and age - for example, HIV/AIDS is twice as prevalent in urban areas than in rural ones.

DFID funding, £10 million per year over the last 6 years, has concentrated on prevention and orphan support. Prevention activities have focused on high risk groups such as fishing communities and young adults, using innovative behaviour change interventions such as the use of community theatre and radio soap operas.

To prevent new infection, we have funded the social marketing of condoms since 2003, with the aim of selling 172 million of them by the end of 2009. This will avert an estimated 85,000 cases of HIV and has contributed to the reduction in the prevalence rate.

Achievements from selected civil society projects supported by DFID include:

• home-based care guidelines adopted nationally
• 65,000 people accessing home-based care in Nyanza
• 210,000 people tested for HIV in Nyanza
• counselling and testing guidelines adopted
• post-rape counselling policy developed.

And with DFID support, 161,000 people had been provided with anti-retroviral drugs by March 2008.

A new £40 million HIV/AIDS programme over 5 years was approved in April 2008.  The DFID programme concentrates on prevention and harmonisation of resources.  The three components include:

• co-funding with the World Bank to provide grants to civil society groups and support mainstreaming within government;
• funding the UN mostly for prevention related activities including upstream policy and strategy development and downstream scale up of service delivery
  
• Co-funding with SIDA a local NGO to strengthen civil society grant management.

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Education

DFID has committed £55 million to support the 2005-10 Kenya Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP). This has provided 4,500 grants for new and rehabilitated primary school classrooms and for improvements to water and sanitation facilities, and has also supplied teaching and learning materials and enhanced teacher skills. In addition, through KESSP, 200,000 orphans and vulnerable children have received school assistance grants, and grants have gone to 4,000 early childhood development centres.

Our support has also helped develop the following in all 18,500 public primary schools in Kenya:

• a world-class decentralised system for textbook procurement, including establishing bank accounts and special committees
• disbursement of per capita grants and public display of receipts and expenditures, leading to greater transparency and accountability
• a successful HIV/AIDS prevention programme.

DFID is currently working with the Government to improve non-formal schools, many of which are found in slum areas.

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Humanitarian aid

• DFID has provided more than £30 million of humanitarian support to the victims of natural and man-made disasters in Kenya since 2004.
• The UK gives funding to established international relief agencies that directly assist people, targeted on the basis of need.
• DFID committed £2.5 million to the Red Cross and others to address the humanitarian consequences of the political violence that forced 304,000 people from their homes and disrupted the livelihoods and basic services of some of the poorest communities in the country.
• Humanitarian work continues in the north and east of the country, where there are high levels of acute malnutrition.
  

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Social protection

The aim of social protection is to enhance people’s capacity to protect themselves against hazards and an interruption in or loss of income. In August 2007, DFID approved a new ten-year Social Protection Programme totalling £122.6 million, to relieve the chronic hunger that still persists in large parts of the country.

This programme will provide cash transfers to the poorest and most vulnerable households in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions - some 300,000 ‘food insecure’ people - to help them plan expenditure and build up assets. An initial 30,000 orphans and vulnerable children will also receive cash transfers to encourage fostering within their communities.

First payments under the Hunger Safety Net Programme to those in the arid and semi-arid regions are expected to be made in January 2009. Support to Orphans and Vulnerable children is already underway. To hear from some of the beneficiaries themselves see our special feature on Christmas in Korogocho  

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Trade growth and private sector development

DFID backs measures that improve investor confidence and reduce the cost of doing business:

• The Financial Sector Deepening Project, costing £11.3 million over five years, aims to improve access to finance for the poor. It supports banks through capacity building, assisting the development of financial products and lending to small enterprises.
• The Kenya Trade and Poverty Programme has helped the government to mainstream and align trade negotiations.
  

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Progress towards Millennium Development Goals

MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
National absolute poverty has declined from 52.3% in 1997 to 45.9% in 2005/06, but it still affects 17 million people and inequality remains high.

MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education
Kenya is making strong progress with primary education, with 86% of children currently enrolled in primary schools, compared to 62% in 1992. On track to meet MDG 2.

MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Gender equality in primary school is now at 98%. DFID and other donors support the Gender and Governance Programme, to ensure long-term support towards women’s attainment of human rights and their participation in democratic governance. The 2007 elections saw an increase in the number of female MPs from 10 (elected in 2002) to 15.

MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
With DFID’s help in tackling malaria - which resulted in 985,995 infants (74% of the total) being fully immunised in 2007 - under-five mortality in Kenya will fall by at least an estimated 15%, putting the country on track for meeting the infectious diseases MDG.

MDG 5: Improve maternal health
Delivery fees for pregnant women have recently been removed, and a national poll has indicated increasing satisfaction with the health services, a result significantly influenced by the improved availability of therapeutic drugs. However, further work is needed to meet this MDG.

MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
HIV/AIDS prevalence has fallen from over 10% to 7.8% over the past five years. See also MDG 4.

MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Civil society organisations (supported by DFID) have made major interventions in the formulation of parliamentary acts on forestry, energy and mining, as well as informing and contributing towards policies on the environment.

MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Access to mobile phones and computers is rising fast. In 2006, almost one in five people had a mobile phone, and there were 10 computers per 1,000 people.

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