Progress and Challenges: Education,
Corruption, Health and HIV/AIDS
8. Kenya has made good progress on several fronts
since the elections of 2002, but challenges remain. On education,
the new Government - with the help of £10 million of DFID
funds - has instituted universal, compulsory and, most importantly,
free, primary education. This move has enabled an extra 1.3 million
children to attend school, illustrating clearly the demand which
exists for education and learning.[4]
But in the absence of increased resources, increasing access to
education leads to a reduction in the quality of the education
which pupils receive, something which we saw with our own eyes
in the over-crowded classrooms of the school we visited in Mathare,
Nairobi. There the headteacher was committed to providing access
for as many pupils as possible. But he needed more resources.
Teacher-pupil ratios of 1:70 (up from 1:33 since the new policy),
two pupils per desk, a lack of water, and too few toilets for
girls, do not make for an effective learning environment. And
lower female enrolment rates, and much lower enrolment rates in
rural areas including the North-East of Kenya, where formal schools
are scarce, remain serious challenges.[5]
In education, though much has been achieved, a lot more remains
to be done. The demand for learning is evident; the development
effectiveness of education, particularly the education of girls,
has been demonstrated. What is lacking are the resources.
9. On corruption too, there has been significant
progress. Tackling corruption and patronage when it is endemic
and extends to the highest levels of political life is extremely
difficult, but the Government seems to be serious about rooting
out the cancer of corruption. There have been significant reforms
to the judiciary, and Kenya is—according to league tables
produced by Transparency International—moving in the right
direction.[6] But the slow
pace of change is a cause of concern, in both the public and private
sectors. If people continue to encounter corruption and requests
for bribes when going about their everyday activities, and accessing
basic services, they will not be satisfied by high-level policy
pronouncements and prosecutions. Implementation on the ground,
making a difference to people's everyday lives, is what matters.[7]
10. In terms of health, HIV/AIDS and malaria there
has been some progress. As the Secretary of State told us, there
appears to have been some stabilisation of the HIV-prevalence
rate.[8] The battle is
far from over, but this is a glimmer of hope in a country where
tackling HIV/AIDS is the "absolutely fundamental challenge
to development", as it is across much of sub-Saharan Africa
and elsewhere.[9] This
in no way provides grounds for complacency. There is much that
the authorities and community leaders can do to reduce the spread
of HIV. It was clear from many conversations we had, with politicians,
aid workers and most eloquently and memorably with female sufferers
from the disease, that a major problem is a widespread aversion
among males to the use of condoms, even when engaging in casual
or commercial sex. There is a great reluctance to raise the issue,
clearly sensitive as it is, in public debate. But this must be
done if attitudes are to change and a taboo that has already proved
fatal for millions of people is to be broken. A change in attitudes
will have little effect unless condoms are widely available. Donors
therefore need to play their part in ensuring the availability
of adequate supplies of condoms in Kenya.
11. On malaria too, with DFID's help, the Government
of Kenya has made progress and will save perhaps 40,000 lives
as a result of phase one of its bed-nets programme.[10]
Many more lives could be saved if the programme were extended
to rural areas and the bed-nets made affordable for the very poor.
In the health sector in general, there should perhaps be a re-balancing
so that more than the currently paltry five percent is spent on
prevention. We, along with DFID, hope that the Government of Kenya's
budget, in June, will reflect a shift in priorities towards prevention.[11]
Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction
and the MDGs
12. The MDGs will not be achieved without economic
growth and job creation. Given the small size of Kenya's economy,
and the current distribution of power and resources, redistribution
without growth simply will not produce the goods. Growth, especially
when some of its fruits can be distributed for poverty reduction,
is good. And Kenya has an important role to play as the economic
dynamo within East Africa. The Economic Recovery Strategy sets
an ambitious target of generating an extra 2.6 million jobs by
2007. The Secretary of State reported that the private sector
was making reasonable progress,[12]
but highlighted the importance of the Kenyan Government moving
forward with the privatisation agenda and with helping to create
an environment which is conducive to business and enterprise.[13]
13. If the Government are serious in pursuing an
economic reform programme along these lines they will have to
address the issue of over-manning and inefficiency in the para-statal
sector which has been a notorious burden on the Kenyan economy
for many years, and which it will clearly take great political
courage and determination to resolve. A prerequisite for successful
transition is the unwinding of inefficient industries and over-manned
bureaucracies inherited from the past. In the short-term this
would increase unemployment above already high levels and be politically
very unpopular. If the new National Rainbow Coalition in Kenya
puts off dealing with this problem far beyond its current honeymoon
period it may never tackle it at all, and it will then fail in
achieving many of its other economic aspirations.
14. There is clearly a key role here for foreign
donors, both in stiffening the Government's resolve and, most
importantly, in being prepared to intervene to help alleviate
some of the pressures that would otherwise be borne by those made
redundant and by their families. Special measures will probably
be required to make the political costs of any radical restructuring
bearable. Donors might usefully consider offering to subsidise
dedicated retraining and enterprise creation schemes, while the
Kenyan Government might contemplate special tax breaks for domestic
and foreign investment projects designed to absorb some of the
people released from the para-statal sector.
15. In a situation where population growth outstrips
economic growth, the prospects for poverty reduction are poor.
Recognising the sensitivities around population control, Government
and donors should, in our view, pay attention to both sides of
the economic growth/population growth equation, improving reproductive
health services and enabling women and families to make well-informed
choices about family size and child-spacing.[14]
Given the need for economic growth, and the huge importance of
agriculture to the Kenyan economy, we were pleased to hear from
Matthew Wyatt, the Head of DFID-Kenya, that the Government of
Kenya has launched a strategy to revitalise the agricultural sector,
and that DFID is working with both the Government and with NGOs
such as Farm Africa in piloting new ways of supporting small-holder
farmers.[15] We welcome
the fact that DFID is paying more attention to agriculture, both
in Kenya and more widely.
16. But economic growth on its own is not sufficient
for poverty reduction. We share the concerns of some of the participants
in the Nairobi seminar about whether the Government of Kenya's
Economic Recovery Strategy—the strategy which DFID's CAP
is designed to support—is sufficiently focussed on poverty
reduction.[16] These
concerns seem to be shared by DFID and partially explain why DFID
is not providing direct budget support to the Government of Kenya.[17]
Questions remain; as Hilary Benn put it: "it is not yet clear
to what extent the budget will reflect expenditure which tackles
poverty and improves social spending".[18]
We were reassured therefore to hear the Secretary of State explain
that DFID will be encouraging the Government of Kenya to adopt
a more explicit focus on poverty, in part through consultation,
discussion and dialogue around the CAP.[19]
We firmly believe that DFID's role should be one of encouraging
developing country governments to prioritise poverty reduction,
rather than one of filling in the poverty gaps left by governments
which have an insufficient focus on poverty.
17. If Kenya is to make progress in terms of economic
growth, poverty reduction, and meeting the MDGs, then the Government
of Kenya must have a well-designed development strategy, well-supported
by donors including DFID. The Country Assistance Plan sets out
DFID's plans. It is to this that we now turn our attention.
3 "Dissenters threaten Kenya's bold attempts to
reform", The Guardian, 27 March 2004. Available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1179080,00.html Back
4
Q 3 [Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development] Back
5
Ev 42-43 [Oxfam memorandum] Back
6
Q 3 [Hilary Benn] Back
7
Q 31 [Hilary Benn] Back
8
Q 4 [Hilary Benn] Back
9
Q 27 [Hilary Benn] Back
10
Q 3 and Q 36 [Hilary Benn] Back
11
Q 5 [Matthew Wyatt, Head of DFID-Kenya] Back
12
Q 3 [Hilary Benn] Back
13
Q 17 [Hilary Benn] Back
14
Q 15-16 [Matthew Wyatt] Back
15
Q 26 [Matthew Wyatt] Back
16
Ev 17, paragraph 4 [Action Aid memorandum], Ev 19, paragraph 4
[CARE Kenya memorandum], and Ev 24 [Farm Africa memorandum] Back
17
Q 6 [Matthew Wyatt] Back
18
Q 25 [Hilary Benn] Back
19
Q 25 [Hilary Benn] Back
