Kenya called a ‘laggard’ in fight against poverty

From left Presidents Yoweri Museveni, Jakaya Kikwete, Uhuru Kenyatta, Paul Kagame and Pierre Nkurunziza. The East African leaders returned from the August 4-6 US-Africa Summit with a mixed bag of pledges. FILE PHOTOS 

By KEVIN J KELLEY The EastAfrican

In Summary

• Kenya is ranked among 14 African countries found to have made the least gains in combating extreme poverty, according to the study, one of the first to gauge individual nations’ performances with regard to the eight development goals established by the UN in 2000

Kenya is lagging far behind most countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of progress toward meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, an anti-poverty campaigning group said in a report issued on May 29.

Kenya is ranked among 14 African countries found to have made the least gains in combating extreme poverty, according to the study, one of the first to gauge individual nations’ performances with regard to the eight development goals established by the UN in 2000.

The report was compiled by ONE, a global advocacy group founded by Irish rock star Bono.

It says 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have accelerated their progress toward the goals, which are supposed to be reached within the next 1,000 days.

Uganda is ranked among the 10 countries that have had the greatest success in improving living conditions for their people. This group of “trailblazers” also includes Mali, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi and Ghana.

Tanzania is placed at the bottom of a set of 23 countries judged to be making modest progress toward the MDGs.

Joining Kenya in the worst-performing “laggard” group are conflict-torn countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Nigeria. Other laggards include Zimbabwe, Burundi, Chad and Cote d’Ivoire.

In an interview, ONE global policy director Ben Leo attributed Kenya’s poor performance mainly to its government’s “under-investment” in health, education and agriculture.

Countries that invest sizable shares of their national revenue in these three sectors generally achieve the highest rate of progress toward the MDGs, Mr Leo observed.

While Kenya has recorded a moderate rate of economic growth in recent years, “We haven’t seen that spread across the majority of the population,” Mr Leo said.

Kenya’s investment in health, agriculture and education amounts to about 33 per cent of its total government expenditures, the ONE report says.

Uganda is making great strides toward the MDGs despite devoting an even smaller share of its budget to these sectors than Kenya does.

Uganda’s strong economic growth in recent years is what accounts primarily for its success in lifting hundreds of thousands of its citizens out of extreme poverty, Mr Leo suggests.

Tanzania expenditure

Tanzania directs about 40 per cent of its government spending to health, education and agriculture, putting it in a high-level grouping on this table. But much of the country’s spending on schools is being wasted or is having little impact, ONE says.

“Tanzanian teachers are absent from the classroom over 53 per cent of the time, students receive only an average of two hours of instruction per day, and funding leakages average 37 per cent in the education sector,” the report points out.

Mr Leo acknowledges that Mali’s inclusion in the MDG “trailblazer” group raises questions about the reliability of the data used in the report.

Mali has been destabilised by a military coup and civil war in the past year, suggesting its gains in fighting poverty are likely to have been erased.

The data gathered by ONE is mainly from 2012, and is the most recent available, Mr Leo noted.