Background
Kenya has great cultural and wildlife diversity and scenic beauty. The country, also famous for its prehistoric sites, was under British control from 1895 until independence in 1963.
The charismatic Jomo Kenyatta took over as the first president when Kenya became a republic in 1964. Kenyatta, leader of the Kenya African National Union political party, governed Kenya as a de facto one-party state until his death in 1978.
He was succeeded by his vice-president, Daniel arap Moi, who held the presidency for almost 25 years before stepping down at the end of 2002 when peaceful elections brought the current President, Mwai Kibaki, to power.
Kibaki, in his last year of office under his current term, ascended to the presidency as leader of the now defunct National Rainbow Coalition, a united multi-ethnic opposition group.
Peace and security
Since independence, Kenya has enjoyed remarkable stability despite changes in its political system and crises in neighbouring countries.
However, the country's ethnic diversity sometimes accounts for tension, with the northern districts of Samburu and Marsabit particularly prone to banditry and cattle rustling.
In Marsabit, more than 10,000 people were displaced in 2006 after persistent cross-border raids and conflicts between the Borana and Gabra communities.
The semi-arid Kenyan territory near the Ethiopian border has also had a history of banditry and cattle rustling among the region’s pastoral communities, which often clash over pasture and water resources.
Ongoing political crises in Somalia and Sudan have also led to the proliferation of small arms in Kenya - blamed for high levels of crime in the country. However, according to the Kenya Police, there was a slight decline in crime incidents in 2006.
In January 2007, Kenya closed its border with Somalia to prevent the spill-over of violence into the country from the fighting in Somalia, which broke out in December 2006.
Security has also been intensified along the common border, with the government issuing a directive that all Kenyans move more than 18km away from the border for security reasons.
Moreover, terrorism remains a threat to the country's security, with an attack on the United States Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, on 7 August 1998 claiming at least 200 lives. A terror attack in Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city, in November 2003, underscored the country's vulnerability.
Children
Malnutrition rates in much of Kenya are critical, according to UNICEF, with a quarter of all children acutely malnourished in some districts.
Years of drought, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the country, have had a serious impact on the wellbeing of children, increasing malnutrition rates, morbidity and mortality.
Kenya’s free and compulsory education system has increased gross enrolment rates to more than 90 percent nationally but poor children still cannot afford to attend school; nine out of 10 children from poor households fail to complete their basic education.
An estimated 10,000-30,000 children have been caught up in the commercial sex trade. Many children resort to prostitution as a way to support themselves after fleeing violence in their homes.
There are wide regional disparities in immunisation rates. In the drought-prone North Eastern Province, where access to health facilities is poor, measles vaccination coverage is only 37 percent.
IDPs/Refugees
Kenya is home to an estimated 238,000 refugees and 360,000 internally displaced people mainly from Sudan and Somalia.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 30,000 new Somali refugees had arrived in Kenya by October 2006 because of drought and civil strife at home.
Another 12,000 refugees from south Sudan also arrived in the Kakuma refugee camp in northeastern Kenya, despite the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement in 2005. There was also an influx of Ethiopian refugees, many of them of alleged Nuer ethnicity from the Gambella region, fleeing insecurity and violence.
Kenya also hosts refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. The high refugee numbers are putting a strain on the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps' infrastructure, necessitating expansion, according to UNHCR.
Recent floods in the northeastern region of Kenya have also destroyed refugee shelters, latrines and infrastructure.
The acute malnutrition rate among refugees in Dadaab is 26.3 percent and 19.6 in Kakuma. Anaemia prevalence among children younger than five is high at 83 percent.
UNHCR plans to assist at least 288,120 refugees by December 2007.
Democracy and governance
Kenyans have enjoyed increased freedom, particularly since the re-emergence of multiparty democracy in 1992.
However, corruption remains one of the biggest concerns of Kenya’s development partners as well as the public, despite the government's campaign pledge to deal with the vice.
Corruption, which was rife in the 1990s, declined during 2003-2004 (after the current government came to power), with new laws put in place requiring civil servants to file annual declarations of income, assets and liabilities; the establishment of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC); and improved public financial management and auditing. The government also set up commissions to unravel decades-old illegal allocation of public lands.
However, the fight against corruption subsequently stagnated, with much-needed reforms still outstanding in the civil service, public financial management, procurement, transparency, media, and privatisation and deregulation in the enterprise and financial sectors.
KACC’s failure to secure prosecution for ‘big graft’ has also engendered doubts about the overall efficacy of the commission.
Kenya's score of three (on a scale of one to six) on issues of ‘Transparency, Accountability and Corruption in the Public Sector’ was unchanged from 2004 and 2003. Kenya was ranked 142nd in the 2006 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) out of 163 countries, with a score of 2.2. The CPI ranks countries on a grade from zero to 10, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and 10 low levels of perceived corruption.
Kenya is expected to hold its next general elections, the fourth as a multi-party state, in December 2007. Kibaki is likely to stand against opposition politicians Kalonzo Musyoka, Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta.
Media
The media enjoys greater editorial independence under the current government than in previous years. The number of abuses of press freedom has also declined.
However, journalists are still exposed to all kinds of public and political violence, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Even if press offences are no longer punishable with prison sentences, fines slapped on newspapers by judges can reach disproportionate levels.
The country has diverse media including government and privately owned print, broadcast and electronic media operating in English, Swahili and vernacular languages.
Economy
Kenya, once one of the leading economies in Africa, experienced a boom from 1971 to 1981. During this decade, gross national product averaged more than 6 percent per year, according to the World Bank.
However, this was followed by more than a decade of deteriorating growth, with international donors suspending loans and grants pending political and economic reforms and improvements in human rights and corruption.
Average GDP growth declined from about 7 percent in the 1970s to just over 2 percent in the 1990s, falling below the average population growth rate of 2.6 percent.
More recently, Kenya’s economic growth has gradually improved up to 4.3 percent in 2004 and over 5 percent in 2005.
The economy relies heavily on agriculture, particularly horticulture, tea and coffee and the service sector, telecommunications and tourism.
The agricultural sector accounts for at least 19 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The export of flowers, fruit and vegetables, mainly to Europe, has become the top Kenyan agricultural activity, displacing traditional exports such as coffee and tea.
A rebound in construction in the past two years - driven by private lending and to some extent government spending - has helped the secondary sector to grow. Also contributing to the recovery is that more investors are reporting that, unlike the pre-2003 period, they can now do business without political interference.
However, economic productivity is unevenly distributed between central areas, characterised by high population density, commercial agriculture, industries and improving standard of living, and the sparsely populated peripheral areas in the northeast, characterised by pastoralism and subsistence agriculture.
Population
During the first decade after independence, Kenya experienced the fastest natural population growth in the world, averaging 4.1 percent, due to a dramatic decline in child mortality and increased security after years of pre-independence civil unrest.
With population pressure straining its resources, Kenya adopted a National Family Planning Programme, the first sub-Saharan African country to do this, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Kenya's population is estimated at 34.3 million with the total fertility rate at 5.5 lifetime births per woman. Life expectancy decreased from 58 years in 1990 to less than 50 in 2005 due to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS.
Kenya's population is young at a median age of 18.7 years with 26.5 percent of the population living on less than US$1 per day.
Development indicators
Kenya is ranked 152nd out of 177 countries in the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report for 2006. Kenya’s position on the UNDP Human Development Index dropped from 134 out of 173 countries in 2002.
The Human Poverty Index, which measures severe deprivation in health by the proportion of people who are not expected to survive beyond the age of 40, ranks Kenya 60 out of 102 developing countries. Life expectancy at birth is 47.5 years.
The combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio is at 60.1 percent. Adult literacy for the population aged 15 years and older is 73.6 percent.
At least 39 percent of the population does not have access to an improved water source.
Education
Education at the primary level is free in Kenya since the inception of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 2003. This has led to an influx of pupils in public primary schools which has consequently overstretched the education infrastructure.
The UPE programme has also been blamed for declining education standards in public primary schools leading to more people who can afford it, sending their children to private schools.
At least 77 percent of girls compared with 76 of boys are in primary school while 40 percent of girls and boys are in secondary school.
According to the UN educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 92 percent of children in Kenya complete a full course in primary school with the adult literacy rate topping 70 percent for both men and women.
Health
Malaria is endemic in Kenya's western and Coast regions which are hot, humid and experience high rainfall with the high humidity encouraging continuous mosquito breeding.
Malaria is the leading cause of morbidity in the country, accounting for 43 percent of outpatient hospital attendance in western Kenya.
According to the Ministry of Health, respiratory diseases are the second leading cause of morbidity nationally, occurring more frequently in the cooler Nairobi and Central regions.
Other health concerns include skin and diarrhoeal diseases, intestinal worms, accidents, urinary tract infections, eye infections, joint disorders such as rheumatism, and ear infections.
At present, the country is dealing with an outbreak of the Rift Valley Fever virus with at least 82 deaths and 220 suspected cases being reported in North Eastern Province and Coast Province, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
A vaccination campaign intended to innoculate more than two million cattle, goats, sheep and camels is continuing in the affected areas.
Kenya also experienced a re-emergence of polio, with a confirmed case being reported in a refugee camp in the northeast in October 2006.
Cerebrospinal meningitis is also a recurring health threat, with 74 cases and 15 deaths reported in March 2006 from four divisions (Alale, Chepareria, Kachelila and Kasei) of West Pokot, an area bordering the epidemic districts of Uganda.
There have also been outbreaks of Leptospirosis, an environmental and zoonotic disease, whose symptoms range from typical flu to major hepatic and renal failures, often leading to death.
HIV/AIDS
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Kenya peaked in the late 1990s with an overall rate of 10 percent in adults; this declined to 7 percent in 2003, with the most recent sentinel surveillance evidence indicating that adult prevalence has now fallen to 6.1 as at end of 2004, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
This is only the second time in more than two decades that a sustained decline in national HIV infection levels has been seen in a sub-Saharan African country. The decline is not uniform however, with prevalence remaining as high as 13 percent in some areas.
The new Kenya National Strategic Plan 2005/6–2009/10 for HIV/AIDS control is focusing on marginalised groups, specifically the prevention needs of injecting drug users, men who have sex with men and sex workers.
The country has recently engaged in consultations over universal access and several challenges to providing such access to prevention, treatment, care and support have been recognised: sustainability of long-term interventions, inefficient commodity management, inadequate human resources, and an inadequate monitoring and evaluation system.
Kenya’s response to the syndrome is coordinated by the National AIDS Control Council which, with increased government and donor funding, was providing treatment to about 60,000 Kenyans by the end of 2005. Currently, 19.7 percent of HIV-infected women and men are receiving anti-retroviral therapy, according to UNAIDS.
Donor funds account for the largest portion of HIV expenditure in Kenya, raising questions of sustainability and highlighting the need for the government to increase its own contribution.
Food security
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) classifies Kenya as a low income, food-deficient country. Vulnerability to drought and food shortages is widespread in the arid and semi-arid districts located in the northern, coastal and eastern areas of the country.
In Kenya, endemic poverty, low economic growth, drought-prone arid and semi-arid lands and high population growth cause increasing hunger. The country is also disaster-prone, with the 2006 floods following a succession of crippling droughts.
The 2005 October-December short rains failed, the culmination of up to six poor seasons, severely affecting the livelihoods of those living in the northern and eastern pastoral areas and in the southeastern agricultural lowlands.
As a result of the drought, children's health and nutrition deteriorated and the livestock that many families depend on for food in the arid northeastern part of the country died in large numbers from exhaustion and lack of water and food.
Food insecurity is highest in urban slums, among pastoralists and marginal agriculturalists in remote, arid and semi-arid lands, which comprise 80 percent of Kenya's land mass.
Risks to food security also include HIV/AIDS, which has taken a toll on the productive workforce. WFP is involved in the School Feeding Programme providing food to children in drought-prone areas.
Gender issues
According to Amnesty International, violence against women is widespread, especially rape.
More than 2,800 cases of rape were reported in 2004, an increase of almost 500 on the previous year, according to police statistics. These figures are not conclusive, however, as many women who are raped or suffer other forms of abuse are too intimidated by cultural attitudes and state inaction to seek redress.
Sexual abuse of children is also on the rise, with many cases being reported in Naivasha on the outskirts of Nairobi, where sexual violence has been inflicted on children as young as a few months old and women as old as 80.
Domestic violence is a serious problem, with at least half of all Kenyan women having experienced violence since the age of 15, often from close family members, according to a demographic health survey carried out by the Ministry of Planning in 2003.
Gender disparities are also of particular concern with regard to HIV/AIDS prevalence in women. Young women are especially vulnerable to HIV infection compared with young men; 4.9 percent of women aged 15–24 are HIV-infected, compared with 0.9 of men of the same age group, according to UNAIDS.
Female genital mutilation remains common in Kenya, carried out on nearly a third of all women between the ages of 15 and 49 despite being outlawed for girls below the age of 16 in 2001.
Nearly a third of reproductive-age women use modern contraceptives. The government has also approved an Adolescent Reproductive Health and Development Policy as well as a Youth and Development Policy to address the reproductive health needs of young people.
Although the Sexual Offences Act was recently passed, very few people are aware of its contents, according to the Kenyan Chapter of the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), with sexual offences occurring after the enactment of the Act still being tried under the previous Penal Code, which now does not cover sexual offences.
Human rights
The current human rights situation in Kenya is one of few serious abuses, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The government has made some commendable steps in addressing human rights concerns including: the appointment to high office of several well-known rights activists, the enforcement of universal free primary education, and a major reform of the judiciary, police and prison services, according to HRW.
However, women and girls continue to be subjected to violence in the home, in the community and in the custody of the state.
There were also continuing reports of torture, ill-treatment, excessive use of force and arbitrary shootings by the police, with prison conditions frequently amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Death sentences continued to be imposed in Kenya.
According to HRW, progress on human rights since the 2002 election is welcome, but important concerns remain, with the repressive state machinery that permitted misrule during former President Moi's era still in place.
According to HRW, the government has been unwilling to commit to any institutional changes such as the adoption of a new constitution that would fundamentally limit the extensive presidential and executive powers.
However, it remains to be seen whether the initiatives to address human rights abuses, corruption, and the widespread illegal expropriation of public lands initiated by President Kibaki will lead to any prosecutions or reparations, according to HRW.
Humanitarian needs
Three years of drought greatly affected 80 percent of Kenya, leading to a declaration of national disaster in July 2004 and a deepening humanitarian crisis in 2006.
Kenya was also affected by heavy rains in October 2006 with flooding in November in the northeast and coastal areas of the country.
An estimated 700,000 people are badly affected, 100,000 of whom are Somali refugees.