Major challenges

DFID: Working to reduce poverty in Kenya

Making aid effective

Britain is the second largest bilateral donor in Kenya, with a budget of £70 million in this financial year. Our aid continues to rise and could be greater still if our concerns over corruption and poor governance are addressed by Kenyan politicians.

Over 80% of our assistance to Kenya goes towards health, education, humanitarian assistance and social protection.

The remaining 20% supports improved governance, private sector development, investment climate and financial sector reform, advice on climate change and improved statistics.

Given the high levels of financial risk and corruption, the majority of UK development aid to Kenya is spent through civil society organisations, international NGOs, UN agencies and partners in the private sector.

We do not provide direct budget support to Kenya, and will not until there is credible progress on tackling corruption and minimising fiduciary risk.

Governance

DFID’s governance programme in Kenya supports a broad range of programmes and activities. Some are designed to strengthen the ability of government to deliver services; others are enabling civil society to monitor public institutions and hold them to account.

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:

providing support for organisations which investigate corruption and monitor the way in which taxpayers’ money is spent, or misspent, such as the National Taxpayers’ Association (NTA) which monitors Government usage of taxpayers’ money
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 is currently completing design of a significant new joint programme (Drivers of Accountability Programme) which aims to improve the Government’s accountability to Kenya’s citizens.

DFID also supports:

Reforms which are making Parliament more efficient, accountable and transparent, and it has provided financial help and guidance to the recently established Office of the Prime Minister.
Kenya's public sector reform programme. This has helped to make government institutions leaner and more efficient, and brought about significant changes in attitude in the public sector – much to the benefit of Kenya’s citizens.
Gender equality through its support to the Gender and Governance Programme. This is a multi-donor basket fund geared towards protecting women’s human rights as well as promoting women’s participation in governance and decision making processes.
Improvement in the collection and analysis of statistical data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. This included support to the national census which took place in August 2009.

DFID is also the largest funder (£2.6 million) of the Annan process which brokered a peace agreement following disputed general elections in December 2007. This aims to not only tackle the underlying issues of the election crisis but also support the commissions reviewing the elections and subsequent violence.

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.

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 2010, as a result of our support (£72 million over eight years), 17 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.
In some areas annual malaria hospital admissions have been reduced by 57% in the last seven years.

Our maternal health programme is improving hospital facilities in areas with high maternal mortality to extend access and use of health services, benefiting over 1 million women. The programme will increase skilled attendance at birth and improve health outcomes for both mother and child.

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 spends around £8 million on HIV/AIDS in Kenya annually. Our programme supports implementation of a National HIV/AIDS Strategy which aims for universal access to prevention, treatment and care. 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.

Over 800 civil society organisations (mostly community based organisations) will be supported in 2010 for capacity building and service delivery, including home based care and nutrition for vulnerable groups.

DFID funds have helped to distribute 195 million condoms and raise awareness, from 50% to 93% of Kenyans, that using condoms prevents HIV.

Achievements from selected civil society projects supported by DFID include:

HIV testing at ante-natal clinics have increased from 50.4% in 2003 to 78.6% in 2007
home-based care guidelines adopted nationally
65,000 people accessing home-based care in Nyanza
210,000 people tested for HIV in Nyanza
110,000 orphans and vulnerable children supported
counselling and testing guidelines adopted
post-rape counselling policy developed.

Education

DFID has been funding the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP) 2005-2010 but due to allegations of fraud UK funds for Kenyan education (mostly primary, but some secondary) have been frozen.

DFID does not tolerate fraud in its programmes. We have a responsibility to the UK taxpayer and to Kenyans to ensure British aid money is only used for its intended purpose of poverty reduction.

No UK funds have been transferred to the Ministry of Education since the fraud came to light in September 2009.

Future UK support to the Ministry of Education depends on the Government’s commitment to uncover the full extent of corruption in education and take action against those responsible.

We hope that these allegations will be dealt with transparently, firmly and quickly so we can resume our funding. As our support for education in Kenya has helped get one million more children into school over the past five years, improved over 4,700 school buildings and ensured that 610,000 orphans and vulnerable children remain in school.

Humanitarian aid

In 2009 the UK provided £15m (Kshs 1.8 billion) to humanitarian operations to alleviate the plight of those most affected. This is helping to:

supply a full emergency food ration for up to 220,000 people for 3 months
treat more than 25,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition
provide clean water for 200,000 households
vaccinate 400,000 additional children against measles.

This assistance is being delivered by a range of UN and NGO partners e.g. WFP, UNICEF, Save the Children and Action Against Hunger.

We are also developing a programme of longer-term support to Kenya’s arid lands to build sustainable livelihoods and reduce dependence on donor humanitarian assistance

Social protection

DFID is providing £122 million over 10 years to improve the livelihoods of the poorest Kenyans. Most of this is spent on two cash transfer programmes.

The Hunger Safety Net Programme provides cash transfers to 60,000 households in Kenya’s Arid Lands and aims to reduce chronic food insecurity and dependence on food aid.

The Orphans and Vulnerable children (OVC) programme aims to encourage fostering within communities and DFID-funding provides cash transfers to 30,000 households. Additional funding from the Kenyan Government, World Bank and UNICEF covers a further 120,000 households.

This equates to support for more than one million of the poorest Kenyans.

To hear from some of the beneficiaries themselves see our special feature on Christmas in Korogocho.

Cash has been shown to have long-term benefits by allowing recipients more flexibility in dealing with food insecurity and accessing basic services including health and education.

Households are able to protect their assets and buy new ones and set up small businesses to improve lives and livelihoods. Innovative private sector payments approaches are highly efficient and increase access by poor communities to financial services.

DFID is also co-financing innovative crop and livestock insurance products to help poor households manage the risked posed by increasing climatic shocks

Trade growth and private sector development

DFID’s work focuses on improving the enabling environment for growth and supporting innovative approaches to improving livelihood opportunities for poor people. Our work has supported the creation of up to 350,000 jobs in recent years.

We are supporting measures that improve investor confidence and reduce the cost of doing business.

The Financial Sector Deepening Project supports banks through capacity building, assisting the development of financial products for poor people and lending to small enterprises. Access to finance has increased for over two million Kenyans.

Through our regional work across East Africa we are promoting increased and easier trade, which will lead to new business opportunities, job creation and falling prices of some goods.

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