At 60 years old, Kenya is mature enough to find new ways for its development

This Tuesday, 12^th December 2023, Kenya marked its 60^th anniversary, commemorating the day it become a republic after having been granted internal self-rule in 1^st June 1963. At independence, the founding fathers were keen to fight three ills afflicting the country at the time: Ignorance, Poverty and Disease. Tremendous progress has since been made on the fight against poverty and disease by the government and stakeholders, but much more remains to be done by all of us. There is a close relationship between poverty and disease, and through the Kenya Vision 2030, Bottom Up-Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), African Union Agenda 2063, East African Community Vision 2050, County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs), Kenya is working towards achieving the status of upper middle-income country, where citizens enjoy a high quality of life in a clean and secure environment. At present, only 16.1 percent of the 53 million Kenyans live below the internationally recognized poverty line. Globally, 23 percent or 1.8 billion people live below the poverty line, while in Africa, rural poverty stood at 50 percent and urban poverty was 10 percent.

The incidence of poverty in Kenya has been decreasing as shown by the recently released Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI), and Kenyan wealth growing such that it collects 13 percent of GDP from taxes. There is need to support and sustain private sector investments to improve the quality of jobs for Kenyans. Going forward, five dimensions of poverty should be addressed as we become of age. First, is to sustain and increase positive incomes and consumption measures and approaches to increase access to finance for improved livelihoods and adequate employment opportunities. Secondly, preventive health care measures must be sustained to ensure good living conditions without overcrowding and unhygienic conditions. Thirdly, the education system should address the needs of the century and beyond, to create an enabling environment for manufacturing, industrialization and sustainability. Fourthly, enhance land and housing tenure security for citizens.

Fifth, sustain the citizen empowerment measures, reduce cases of illegitimacy of work and residence, inadequate flow of information to access jobs and other opportunities. Ignorance, defined as lack of knowledge or information, has not been fully addressed.  Some ignorance is culturally induced phenomenon, and is manifested in many ways hindering the full productivity and potential of Kenyans. Driving out ignorance shall make us realize that our problems cannot be solved by others, since we are the solution to our own problems, we are the ones we have been waiting for, we are the change we seek as Obama would say Dr. Mutegi Giti, Urban management, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) & Environment Specialist. mutegigiti@gmail.com, @DanielGiti.