Working Paper No. 06 of 2002 on a Situational Analysis of Poverty in Kenya

Abstract

Poverty is a major social and economic concern in Kenya. According to the 1997 welfare monitoring survey, more than half of Kenya’s population is poor. The government, together with donors, the private sector, the civil society and other stakeholders, has prepared a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) to fight poverty. That paper prioritizes projects and programmes aimed at poverty reduction in the medium term. To ascertain and monitor the impact of such programmes and projects from time to time, estimates of poverty indices and profiles at different points in time are necessary. Such estimates are easy with regular household surveys. However, such surveys require substantial resources and expertise to design and implement. Given that resources to carry out such surveys are limited, an alternative to using survey data is to estimate poverty using previous poverty profiles. We have estimated poverty indices and profiles for the year 2000 using poverty estimates based on 1994 and 1997 welfare monitoring surveys. The estimated income poverty in Kenya for 2000 is 57%.