At least five out of every 13 Kenyans live in poverty.
Also, two out of every five Kenyans in rural areas live in poverty and two out of every six in urban areas live in poverty, a report has revealed.
The report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that nationally, about 30 per cent of citizens are unable to meet their food needs, with more rural than urban dwellers living in hunger. One in every 17 Kenyans lives in abject poverty, with a population of 2,879,000 classified as living in “hardcore/extreme poverty” in 2021 by the Kenya Poverty Report.
“Individuals (or households if estimated at the household level) whose total consumption per adult equivalent was less than Sh2,331 per month in rural areas and less than Sh2,905 per month in urban areas are considered to be hardcore poor or living in hardcore poverty," the KNBS Kenya Poverty Report, 2021 said.
The report shows that rural Kenya continues to experience high levels of poverty, with one in 13 rural dwellers living in extreme poverty, while only one in 66 urban dwellers lived in hardcore poverty in 2021.
In terms of food poverty, the report shows that one in three rural dwellers could not meet their food needs, while in urban areas, one in four also lived in food poverty. One is considered to be living in food poverty if “an individual (or households if estimated at household level) whose food consumption per adult equivalent was less than Sh2,331 per month in rural areas and Sh2,905 per month in urban areas," according to the report.
KNBS released three reports on food poverty this month, capturing trends in Kenya's poverty status from 2019 to 2021. The reports capture data on overall poverty, food poverty and hardcore poverty, with 16,945 households surveyed in 2021.
A person is considered to be in overall poverty if their consumption of items such as food and basic non-food expenses such as shelter, clothing and personal care falls below Sh3,947 in a month (for rural dwellers) and Sh7,193 for urban dwellers.
By this measure, five out of every 13 Kenyans lived in poverty by 2021, representing 38.6 per cent of Kenya's population of 49,529,000 in 2021. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of people living in poverty increased by 20.7 per cent to 19.122 million, according to the poverty reports.
Nairobi residents take a nap at Jevanjee Gardens along Moi Avenue. The latest KNBS report says the capital city is among the counties with the highest number of poor people.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
However, it was in urban areas where poverty rates increased the most, by 42.5 per cent, compared to rural areas, where the number of people living in overall poverty rose by 13.8 per cent.
In 2019, there were 3.79 million Kenyans in urban areas living in overall poverty, rising to 5.4 million Kenyans by 2021. The proportion of urban dwellers living in overall poverty increased from 26 per cent to 34 per cent over the three years, the reports show.
In rural Kenya, however, the number of people living in total poverty increased from 12 million to 13.7 million, while the proportion of those living in total poverty rose from 37 per cent to 40.7 per cent over the three years.
“Analysis of trends in poverty indicators shows an initial decrease in the overall poverty rate of 2.5 percentage points between 2015/16 and 2019, then an increase in overall poverty of 9.3 percentage points between 2019 and 2020, and a decrease of 4.3 percentage points between 2020 and 2021,” the 2021 report says.
It notes that there was a sharp increase in poverty in the country in 2020 when the world faced the Covid-19 pandemic which affected people living in urban areas more. “The total headcount poverty rate in rural areas initially decreased by 1.8 percentage points between 2015/16 and 2019, followed by an increase of 6.5 percentage points between 2019 and 2020, and a decrease of 2.8 percentage points between 2020 and 2021.
“A similar trend was observed for the overall poverty rate in urban areas, where there was an initial decrease of 3.4 percentage points between 2015/16 and 2019, followed by a large increase of 15.7 percentage points between 2019 and 2020 and a decrease of 7.6 percentage points between 2020 and 2021,” it says.
It notes that the trends in overall poverty rates are replicated in food poverty and severe poverty.
The Poverty Report, 2021, also shows that nationally, 80.2 per cent of households bought the food they consumed, 14.6 per cent consumed food they produced, while 5.2 per cent consumed food they received as gifts.
In urban areas, more households (93.5 per cent) consumed purchased or stored food than in rural areas (74 per cent).
Counties with the highest expenditure on food include Wajir (78.2 per cent of household expenditure), Isiolo (76.2 per cent), Turkana (73 per cent) and Kitui (72.5 per cent).
“Nationally, female-headed households have a higher poverty headcount rate (38.8 per cent) than male-headed households (32.7 per cent). The poverty headcount rate increases with household size in all areas of residence, ranging from 30.6 per cent in households with one to three members to 49.9 per cent in households with at least seven members,” the report says.
Maxmilla Lihavi, 30 years and a single mother of four children washes clothes for one of her clients. She is paid Sh150 which is not enough to cater to her family's needs in Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Nairobi on June 8, 2023.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
The 2021 report adds that one in two households living in rural areas and headed by older people (over 70) are poor.
Overall, between 2019 and 2021, the number of people classified as 'overall poor' nationally increased by 20.7 per cent and those classified as 'food poor' by 5.3 per cent, while those classified as 'hardcore poor' decreased by 27.7 per cent. The report also shows that 10 counties are home to 37 per cent of Kenya's poor, with Nairobi and Nakuru among the counties with the highest number of poor and the largest increase in their numbers.
In Nakuru, 893,000 people (39.4 per cent of the population in 2021) were living in poverty. This was the highest number of poor people in a single county that year after the county saw the number of people living in 'total poverty' increase by 44.7 per cent from 617,000 in 2019.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) released three poverty reports this month, collecting data on poverty status in each county between 2019 and 2021. They classify a person as living in 'overall poverty' if their consumption of items such as food and basic non-food expenses such as shelter, clothing and personal care falls below Sh3,947 per month for rural dwellers and Sh7,193 for urban dwellers.
Bungoma followed with 775,000 people (43.9 per cent of the county's population) living in total poverty in 2021, following a 33.6 per cent increase in the number of people living in total poverty in the county.
In third place, Nairobi City County - Kenya's capital - had 759,000 people (16.5 per cent of its 4.6 million population in 2021) living in overall poverty.
While Nairobi ranks third among counties with the highest number of poor people, with only 16.5 per cent of its population classified as living in poverty, it experienced the largest increase in the number of overall poor residents, rising by 72.5 per cent from 440,000 in 2019, according to an analysis of the three poverty reports by KNBS.
This is largely due to the Covid-19 crisis that hit in early 2020 and saw the number of residents living in overall poverty increase by 162.7 per cent from 440,000 (2019) to 1,156,000 (2020), before declining slightly in 2021.
The reports show that by 2021, one in every six Nairobians lived in poverty, a negative trend from 2019 when only one in every 10 residents lived in poverty.
“Nakuru, Bungoma, Kakamega, Nairobi City, Turkana and Kilifi counties have the highest number of ‘total poor’ people, accounting for 24.2 per cent of all poor people in the country," the Kenya Poverty Report, 2021, says.
The KNBS reports further show that Kakamega ranked fourth among counties with the highest number of poor people in 2021, with 753,000 (or 39.6 per cent) of its residents living in total poverty, while Kilifi followed with 746,000 residents (49.2 per cent in 2021) also living in poverty.
And while Turkana ranked fifth among counties with a high number of people living in total poverty with 743,000 people, it was the worst county in terms of the proportion of its population living in poverty, with five out of every six people.
“The overall incidence of poverty is highest in Turkana (77.7 per cent), Mandera (71.9 per cent), Garissa (68.3 per cent), Tana River (67.8 per cent), Wajir (66.3 per cent), Samburu (66.2 per cent), Marsabit (65.9 per cent) and West Pokot (61.4 per cent),” the 2021 Poverty Report states.
While Turkana remains one of the counties with a high number of poor people in the country, the numbers have decreased by 0.7 per cent since 2019. Mandera had 653,000 (71.9 per cent of its population) living in total poverty in 2021, while Kitui had 637,000 (55.2 per cent).
Garissa had 601,000 (68.3 per cent) living in poverty, while Busia topped the list of 10 counties with the highest number of people living in poverty with 581,000 (58.3 per cent of the county's population).
The 10 counties continue to host a large proportion of the population living in poverty, with many households going without food and many living in abject poverty. They were home to 36.9 per cent of Kenya’s poor in 2019.
