ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

"Alleviating poverty through citizen empowerment, capacity building, knowledge and skills, and micro-financing to improve the livelihoods of the rural and urban poor."

 Though, the Kenya government's primary development goal for the period 2002 - 2005 has been to achieve a broad-based, sustainable improvement in the standards of welfare of all Kenyans, this objective has not been met. It will require a concerted effort to tackle the intolerably high incidence of poverty that now afflicts about half of the population. The government has a particular responsibility for spearheading action and creating a positive framework; but the work of non-governmental and community based organisations is vital if this noble objective of poverty reduction has to be realised. It is imperative that Kenya mobilises all available resources, including support from friends and partners and use those resources efficiently and effectively in the fight against poverty.

It goes without question that poverty is a major inhibition of social and economic justice of any nation. Poverty has numerous manifestations including low and unreliable income, poor health, low levels of education and literacy, insecurity and uncertain access to justice, disempowerment, and isolation from the mainstream of socio-economic development. It is, therefore, necessary to devise multi-dimensional policies and interventions that will provide a permanent solution.

The poor must be provided with the means to help themselves through income earning opportunities, ready access to means of production, the provision of affordable, basic services and the protection of the law. This will not be achieved through temporary relief programmes but only through a deliberate and long term policy to increase equity of opportunity and to ensure that all members of our society can participate fully in the socio-economic development of Kenya.

A fundamental prerequisite for poverty reduction is economic growth that considerably outpaces population growth. Over the past few years Kenya's economy has declined in per capita terms. As a result, the standard of living for the vast majority of the population has suffered and the level of poverty has risen alarmingly.

It is the responsibility of the government and the non-governmental organisations to restore and sustain rapid economic growth in order to generate the wealth and economic expansion necessary to reduce the incidence of poverty. It is on this background that CELA-Kenya was established, to strengthen the foundations for a broad, sustained attack on poverty and the creation of a more equitable society.

MICRO-FINANCE

CELA-Kenya has initiated the Micro-Finance Programme primarily to provide an alternative source finance for the poor at minimal interests rates to support economic projects by the poor masses. This programme targets women and the rural poor.

This is in addition to the Economic Empowerment activities run by the organization. The organization seeks to empower citizens through provision of information, investment education, sustainable development training, business-expansion support, farming support, protection and preservation of consumer rights, empowerment of women among other activities.

It is important to note the statistics published by the Government of Kenya in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper on the state of Poverty in the country:

In Kenya, the poor constitute slightly more than half the population of Kenya. Women constitute the majority of the poor and also the absolute majority of Kenyans. Three-quarters of the poor live in rural areas. The bulk of them are located within the highly populated belt stretching South to South-East from Lake Victoria to the Coast which straddles the rail and road corridors. Preliminary results of the 1997 Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS), show that the incidence of rural food poverty was 51%, while overall poverty reached 53% of the rural population. In urban areas, food poverty afflicted 38% and overall poverty 49% of the population. The overall national incidence of poverty stood at 52%. According to available estimates, over the past 25 years food poverty has increased more than absolute poverty. The number of poor increased from 3.7 million in 1972-3 to 11.5 million in 1994. Thereafter, numbers increased to 12.5 million in 1997 and is now estimated to have reached some 15 million.

Major characteristics of the poor include landlessness and lack of education. The poor are clustered in certain socio-economic categories that include small farmers, pastoralists in ASAL areas, agricultural labourers, casual labourers, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, female-headed households, the physically handicapped, HIV/AIDS orphans and street children. The poor have larger families (6.4 members compared to 4.6 for non-poor) while in general rural households are larger than urban. Geographically, North Eastern and Coast Provinces have the largest poor households. Nationally, poor women have a higher total fertility rate (rural 7.0 and urban 4.8) than non-poor women (rural 6.7 and urban 4.1). Studies in Kenya show that fertility rates decline with education while the use of family planning is higher among the non-poor.

According to evidence on health status, the prevalence and incidence of sickness are similar for both the poor and non-poor. However, the response to sickness is markedly different. An overwhelming majority of the poor cannot afford private health care (76% rural and 81% urban) and rely on public health facilities. However, 20% of the urban poor and 8% rural poor found even public health charges unaffordable. Furthermore, 58% urban and 56% rural poor reported that they do not seek public health care because of the unavailability of drugs. A further indicator of disparity is that only 37% of poor mothers gave birth in hospital compared to 58% of the non-poor mothers.

Empirical evidence shows that 13% of the urban poor have never attended school at all while the comparative rural figure is 29%. Of the poor, only 12% of those in rural areas have reached secondary education while for the urban poor the figure rises to 28%. Dropout rates have risen, as have disparities in access, due to geographic location, gender and income. The main reason for not attending school is the high cost of education. Children are also required to help at home, while for girls socio-cultural factors and early marriage are significant factors.

Inequitable access to the means of production (land and capital), the distribution of wealth, reduced access to economic goods and services and remunerative employment are all causes of poverty. Poverty adversely affects participation in social and political processes and denies life choices while the poor are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. In terms of income distribution, Kenya ranks highly as inequitable. Estimates indicate that a high proportion of wealth is concentrated in a very small proportion of the total population. This income concentration is the highest amongst the 22 poorest countries and is exceeded only by Guatemala (per capita income US$1340), South Africa (US$3,160) and Brazil (US$3,640).

CELA-Kenya is determined to change this sad statistics and provide some level of sustainable and indigenous solutions to this chain of poverty.

INFORMAL SECTOR IN KENYA

Informal Sector in Kenya which has been around for more than 30 years came into being as a spontaneous response to the need for survival as the economy under the Kanu regime collapsed. Consequently, the sector has a highly personalised decision-making process. It was started to create employment opportunities. By 1996 the sector had 63% of the working population. It is here to stay. We must therefore create an organizational structure, improve on it by creating legal structures and a framework in the sustainability and the creation of wealth.

In Kenya Informal Sector is defined as "all enterprises employing less than 50 workers." This includes: Home-based business, self-employed, Street traders and vendors, Temporary contracts in construction and building. However, the strongest is Jua-Kali enterprise sector (where artisans work as individuals or groups in open air, in areas of motor mechanics, iron-smiths, others are electricians, carpenters, tailors, wood and soft stone carving etc.) that produce goods and services. Jua-Kali sector continues to create jobs, develop skills and linkages to formal sector, create demand, supply, savings and investment; facilitate indigenous entrepreneurship and commitment to earn a descent living. Jua-Kali is a sector that uses local resources and is seen as a road map to "Kenyan industrial revolution." The other emerging informal sector is bicycle and motor cycle transport especially in urban areas. Informal sector is predominantly an urban area activity concentrated in Nairobi, Rift Valley, Central and Nyanza provinces in that order.

The existing researches including that of ILO reveal that about 70% of the working population in Kenya work in the informal sector and it is estimated that the sector creates two-thirds of the annual new employment opportunities. Many obstacles have been identified that hinder the formalization of the sector. In broader terms, they are grouped into five; Institutional, Organizational, Legal, Financial and Attitudinal. (Education, skills, training, credit, capital equipment, taxation, social security of the employees, hash and hazardous working conditions, harassment by the authorities, acquisition of raw materials, marketability of finished products.) This is a potential sector that we cannot afford to ignore. To reap maximum benefits, there is need to formalise and set quantifiable standards to objectively set strategic plans and to attract large-scale investments to the sector that can lead us to mass-production.

The Kenya government has no clear-cut policies or laws to address the problems in the sector, except for Sessional Paper No. 2 of 1992, which set a policy framework for promotion of small-scale and Jua-kali development. The inadequate and inappropriate policies and lack of legal framework in the informal sector is attributed to lack of the sector participation. In the past, those in the informal sector have been CELAK willing to have a legislation to regulate their activities and expose them to registration and taxation. The unfounded and disorganized framework under which the informal sector operates has been criticized as being responsible for perpetuating their status of informality. It is time for members to choose between the getting benefits that come with a legal framework and obstacles of informality.