Economic and Social Challenges
As identified above, major root causes to the social challenge of street connected children is poverty. Kenya has a population of around 46 million, with 40% of its population being between 0 – 14 years, 19% between 15 – 24 years and 34% between 25 – 54 years. From a low point following disputed elections in 2007 and the global financial crisis of 2008, the state of Kenya’s economy and governance have improved. The country has averaged 5.5 percent growth since 2010, and in 2014 it became a middle-income country, signaling the viability of significantly greater domestic resources. However, poverty rates in Kenya remain relatively high compared to other lower middle-income countries. The new country economic update shows that the proportion of Kenyans living on less than the international poverty line (US$1.90 per day in 2011 PPP) has declined from 43.6% in 2005/06 to 35.6% in 2015/2016. Yet Kenya continues to be plagued by persistent internal conflicts, vulnerability to terrorism and insecurity, and climatic risks. All of these factors, along with harmful social norms and gender inequality, threaten the country’s progress and undermine the equitable realization of children’s rights. This is particularly true in growing informal urban settlements.
There are approximately 2.5 million slum dwellers in about 200 settlements in Nairobi – representing 60% of the Nairobi population, occupying just 6% of the land – who cannot afford 1.2 dollars per day. In such settlements, lack of sanitation, poor health care, and a deteriorated level of insecurity makes survival impossible for many families.
Out of Kenya’s estimated labor force of 19.67 million in 2013, only 2.127 million, or 11.5%, are waged employees in the formal sector. Half of the population in the slums are working in the informal sector and live on very low, irregular incomes. With high inflation, prices increase on basic commodities like food products, they are in a greater risk than ever of being unable to meet their basic survival needs. Over 75 per cent of the children below 18 years continue experiencing one or more deprivations of their rights. Over 1 million children are out of school, over 2 million are orphaned, and 700,000 children live with a disability. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) status report 2015 showed unfinished business in key pillars, such as poverty eradication and hunger, reduction of maternal mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, and access to safe drinking water and quality sanitation. “After several years of devolution, the low utilization rate of the county development budget (approximately 40-50 per cent) remained challenging, and limited the levels of public investment in social sectors.”
While assessing the educational characteristics of the household’s heads in RDC targeted households, the recently conducted RDC evaluation found that the highest level of education attained by a majority (60%) is primary education. However, 37% out of these 60% never completed the same. Only 15.3% finished secondary school while 12% had some secondary education. A mere 4.7% has post-secondary level of education and 5% did not have any schooling at all. This clearly shows that most of the caregivers targeted by RDC depend on businesses and informal employment for survival as one caregivers said during the FGD:
“You know our economic, training and education backgrounds are poor and most of us did not have chance to go to school well and therefore we cannot secure salaried employment. In this regard most of us depend on wages and business as source of household income. Those who are lucky to have secured salaried employments are also not permanently employed therefore they are paid little money.”
