Kenya Economic Report 2010 on Enhancing Sectoral Contribution Towards Reducing Poverty, Unemployment and Inequality in Kenya

Abstract

The Kenya Economic Report (KER) 2010 is the second in a series of annual reports on the Kenyan economy prepared by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). The report analyzes recent economic performance and medium-term prospects. The theme of KER 2010 is ‘Enhancing sectoral contribution towards reducing poverty, unemployment and inequality in Kenya’. The report, therefore, stresses the need for broad-based sustained growth in order to address the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment. KER 2010 also continues to benchmark Kenya’s performance against comparator countries and a few selected newly industrialized countries (NB: Date used for cross-country comparison may be different due to data sources). Although Kenya remains the largest economy in the East African Community, its economic performance in 2008 and 2009 was the slowest despite facing almost similar external conditions. This underscores the need for stability and effective management of domestic affairs. While Part I of this report analyzes macro and social sector performance, Part II analyzes the state of the economy at the sector level, namely: agriculture, trade, manufacturing, financial services, tourism, infrastructure and the environment. Part III presents the medium-term prospects for the economy under different policy options. Part IV of the report focuses on how the various sectors of the economy impact poverty, unemployment and inequality. The report recommends broad-based growth so as to maximize synergies, employment generation, equity, and poverty reduction