Tag Archives: Poverty

UNDP releases 2019 “Multidimensional Poverty Index” (updated)

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Updated: For Multidimensional Poverty Index rollout from 2010, see “‘300 million people are suddenly poor”; the Multidimensional Poverty Index and Rwanda“.

For the 2019, read the release and related documents and see the data set at Table 1 here.

The report covers 101 developing countries. As a percentage of population living in “multidimensional poverty” Sub-Saharan African countries fare worse than other regions on average but there are wide variations between countries as well as within countries.

The countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with less than 50% of the population living in multidimensional poverty:

South Africa 6.3

Gabon 14.8

Eswatini 19.2

Sao Tome & Principe 22.1

Congo (Brazzaville) 24.3

Ghana 30.1

Zimbabwe 31.8

Lesotho 33.6

Namibia 38.0

Kenya 38.7

Cameroon 45.3

Cote d’Ivoire 46.1

Togo 48.2

Others in East Africa:

Sudan 52.3

Rwanda 54.4

Uganda 55.4

Tanzania 55.4

Burundi 74.3

Ethiopia 83.5

South Sudan (pre-civil war survey) 91.9 (worst of the 101 listed)

Observation: Some global comparisons for reference might include India 27.9, Myanmar 38.3, Cambodia 37.2, Haiti 41.3, Guatemala 28.9; Honduras 19.3, Mexico 6.3.

As far as other places with terrorist conflict: Nigeria 51.4; Chad 85.7; Burkina Faso 83.8; CAR 79.2; Mali 78.1; DRC 74.0; Mozambique 72.5. Libya was listed as 2.0, Egypt 5.3, Tunisia 1.3 and Algeria 2.1.

Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia/Somaliland were not included.

USAID Administrator Mark Green and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump Deliver Remarks on the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative | USAID Media Advisory

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On Wednesday, July 10, Administrator Mark Green of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the President, will participate in a discussion co-hosted by USAID and the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC). Administrator Green and Advisor Trump will highlight new partnerships and activities of the Women’s Global Development and
— Read on www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/jul-8-2019-usaid-administrator-mark-green-and-advisor-president-ivanka-trump

See Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s announcement of the program here.

WASHINGTON, DC

“The Trump administration continues to empower women economically with the launch of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity initiative.

“This initiative aims to benefit 50 million women from 2017 to 2025 through economic empowerment efforts and motivates private sector actors – both abroad and at home – to emphasize the critical role women play in creating prosperity. Economic empowerment of women has a significant effect on global growth as women invest in stable societies and promote a world free of child labor and forced labor.

“The U.S. Department of Labor supports the W-GDP initiative through its efforts to promote the development of in-demand skills among women in the workforce, the identification of entrepreneurship opportunities, and the creation of an empowering environment for working women to flourish in the global economy.

“The Department of Labor works every day to ensure a fair global playing field for workers in the U.S. and around the world by enforcing trade commitments and strengthening labor standards.

“As part of this work, the Department of Labor seeks to ensure that the workplace rights of women are enforced – through policy engagement in both bilateral and multilateral contexts, and through negotiations and enforcement of labor protections under U.S. trade agreements that promote women’s empowerment as workers and as entrepreneurs.”

Agency

Office of the Secretary

Date

February 7, 2019

Release Number

19-252-NAT

Contact: Megan Sweeney

Phone Number

So how is United States global leadership on child sex trafficking? Impartial administration of justice?

Since the 2007 election debacle, pervasive hunger has continued to grow in Kenya, while China and the United States promote and backstop the power of leaders who do not care enough

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The population of Kenya has grown roughly 25% since my year “promoting democracy” in 2007-08, from around 40 million to around 50 million. These are loose numbers because they do not reflect anything that is of the highest priority for Kenya’s leaders (and thus those outsiders who promote and underwrite Kenya’s leaders).

Kenya is to conduct a census this year, but the process is politically contentious and corruption makes it hard to carry off undertakings of this nature (another area where the United States seems to be moving toward convergence with Kenya recently). And there is always a new gambit, like “Huduma Namba” that comes along, with the help of Kenya’s politically-connected corporates and foreign corporate foundations, to get in the way of the core functions of the Government of Kenya, like conducting the census.

Unfortunately, although the size of the economy has continued to grow hunger has increased and Kenya remains a “middle income” country where the majority of citizens are inadequately fed. Agricultural performance has actually declined rather than merely grown at an insufficient pace as experienced in many other sectors.

Please take time to read this report from the Daily Nation’ Newsplex: “Poor planning and inaction to blame for food insecurity” There are a lot of important facts and figures, but here is a key summary of where things stand:

But despite the decline in the undernourishment rate, which is, however, higher than Africa’s 20 percent, the prevalence of severely food-insecure Kenyans jumped four percentage-points from 32 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2017, resulting in Kenya’s ranking as the eighth-worst on the indicator globally.

Yes, Kenya continues to have a problem with employment as a whole and the failure of the various power generation schemes over the years has been one factor for Kenya’s reliance on imports rather than it’s own manufacturing. But the decline of agriculture is the more immediate and inexcusable problem–and would be much easier to address if it were prioritized–as opposed to yet another questionable power generation scheme.

Helpful reading on why al-Shabaab has gained support in Kenya – and remembering Garissa University attack (updated)

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UPDATE April 4: A timely new report came out today on this topic from the International Crisis Group, “The Hidden Cost of al-Shabaab’s Campaign in North-eastern Kenya.”

To follow up on my last post addressing U.S. strategy in the war with al-Shabaab in Somalia, here is a helpful March article from TRT World magazine on “Why is al-Shabaab making inroads in Kenya?”

Also recommended is a January report to the UK Parliament “The Threat of al-Shabaab in Kenya: the Kenyan Government’s Counterterrorism Approach“.

And a January overview from Ilya Gridneff in World Politics Review, “Despite Reforms Across the Horn of Africa, al-Shabab Continues a Deadly Campaign“.

And relatedly, today Nairobi’s Star features a Central Bank of Kenya report that “51% of Kenyans Live Hand-to-Mouth” (up from 34.3% in 2016).

The attack on Garissa University killing 147 Kenyans, primarily Christian students, was four years ago this week. It is sad to recognize the degree to which this type of threat may have grown in some important respects rather than reduced since that time.

New Human Development Index ratings: most high and middle performers in SSA are underperforming relative to GNI

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Nairobi Kenya Microsoft billboard

Here are the Sub-Saharan African countries with a Human Development Index in the “High” and “Medium” categories as listed by the recent release for 2017 from the UNDP.

Interestingly, Kenya along with Sao Tome and Principe stand out for having a Medium HDI level relative to a lower Gross National Income per capita. Equatorial Guinea was the most extreme under-performer relative to GNI rank.

HDIRank # GNI/capita HDIRank-GNIScore

HIGH

101 Botswana .717 15,534 (-26)

110 Gabon .702 16,431 (-40)

MEDIUM

113 South Africa .699 11,933 (-23)

129 Namibia .647 9,387 (-25)

137 Congo .606 5,694 (-5)

140 Ghana .592 4,096 (3)

141 Equatorial Guinea .591 19,513 (-80)

142 Kenya .590 2,961 (16)

143 Sao Tome and Principe .589 2,941 (16)

144 eSwatini .588 7,620 (-29)

144 Zambia .588 3,315 (2)

147 Angola .581 5,790 (-16)

151 Cameroon .556 3,315 (2)

Must reads on Kenya

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Kenya’s dangerous path toward authoritarianism by Neha Wadekar in The New Yorker.

Kenyatta’s grand plan to silence Kenya’s free press by George Ogola in African Arguments.

This is how you capture the rise of Kenya’s vibrant contemporary art scene by Abdi Latif Dahir in Quartz Africa.

Central Kenya’s Biting Poverty by Dauti Kahura in The Elephant.

Crackdown on the media in the best fashion of past despots by Macharia Gaitho in The Nation.

Uhuru must resist temptation to take Kenya back to KANU days by Rasna Warah in The Nation.

Vested interests may stifle U.S. arms embargo on South Sudan by Fred Oluoch in The East African. [“Kenya — whose Mombasa port is the main entry for arms destined for South Sudan — has remained cagey on the issue.”]

The U.S. “official” infatuation with Kenya, in numbers

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I’ve spent some time looking at “Official Development Assistance” (“ODA”) numbers for Africa to test my perception that the U.S. seems, for some reason that is hard to pin down, to give an inordinate amount of “development” money to Kenya.

At play Monkeys at play on UN vehicle

Sure enough. Going through the ODA summaries by country from the OECD, for each of 47 countries in continental Africa, we find plenty of verification of this. The U.S. is the leading bilateral ODA donor for 25 of the 47, including Kenya (Kenya’s number two donor is Japan). Kenya is the number three recipient of bilateral ODA from the U.S. for a 2010-2011 annual average (the most recent listing) of $642M, behind only the Democratic Republic of Congo at $1,053M and Ethipia at $791M.

On a per capita basis this is $15.53 for DRC, $15.43 for Kenya and $9.34 for Ethiopia. What about “need” based on poverty? PIn the DRC the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is $190; in Ethiopia $400. Kenya, on the other hand, has a GNI per capita of $820, more than double that of Ethiopia and well more than four times that of the DRC.

Across the continent as a whole, Kenya ranks ninth in per capita U.S. ODA. Three countries of those getting more per capita are special cases: Liberia and South Sudan, post-conflict states where the U.S. has a special historic relationship and responsibility relating to the founding of the country itself and Libya, an immediate post-conflict situation where the U.S. government was instrumental in supporting the removal of the prior regime. All of the recipients ahead of Kenya except for the DRC have relatively small populations.

Among the five countries of the East African Community, Kenya receives both the largest amount and the most per capita in ODA from the U.S., even though its GNI per capita is by far the largest:

Country        GNI Per Capita      U.S. Bilateral ODA      Per Capita      Rank/Reference

Burundi           $250                             $48M                      $5.58        2 (1-Belgium 161M)

Kenya             $820                              $642M                   $15.43       1 (2-Japan $139M)

Tanzania         $540                             $546M                    $10.74          1 (2-UK $219M)

Rwanda           $570                             $167M                   $15.32           1 (2-UK $121M)

Uganda           $510                              $388M                   $11.24           1 (2-UK $163M)

————-
And a sampling of other countries of interest:

Somalia           —-                                 $90M                      $9.38           2 (2-UK $107M)

C.A.R.           $470                                $16M                      $3.56           3 (1-France $29M)

Malawi          $340                                $140M                    $9.69           1 (2-UK $126M)

Mali               $610                                $232M                  $14.68          1 (2-Canada $106M)

Niger             $360                                  $97M                     $6.02          1 (2-France $56M)

Chad              $690                                $124M                    $10.75       1 (2-France 45M)

Related articles

Is Washington, DC a logical place from which to fight global poverty? (Updated)

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I thank those of you who have been reading some of my older posts while I have been primarily away from the blog the past few weeks.

Let me take time now to throw out a couple of “macro” observations as an observer of “development” practice in recent years and a life long observer and frequent past participant in American politics.  The first is just how strange it is from one perspective that organizations like USAID and especially the Millennium Challenge Corporation are located “inside the beltway” in Washington, DC.

Don’t get me wrong, Washington certainly has its share of poverty, but in general the Washington inhabited by agencies like USAID, the MCC and the World Bank operates in the thrall of the micro-economy generated by the brokering of the American federal government’s expenditures on the order of $4 Trillion annually.  It is a sui generis antiseptic boomtown quite disconnected from the economy of the rest of the cities and towns even of the United States, much less the rest of the world. Especially that of those facing the extreme poverty that the Millennium Development Goals were intended to overcome.

It just seems to me that we might, say, move one of our agencies like the MCC to West Virginia, for instance.

West Virginia is one of our poorer states, and one where we have this terrible problem of conflict between the need for jobs and the immediate and long term environmental harm done by strip mining and “mountain top removal” for coal.  West Virginia has an economy rooted in natural resources and agriculture, like most of the world, and unlike the District of Columbia–but it is close by, just a short drive.  Long serving Senator Robert Byrd was for many years famous especially for bringing federal agencies outside Washington to his state of West Virginia.  While this was widely derided as “pork barrel politics” by people from other states, those federal agency jobs go somewhere.  Putting a poverty fighting agency there might directly fight poverty as well as help us learn more about how to be most helpful elsewhere.

Update: On the topic of US aid transparency, here is great piece from Jennifer Lentner (@intldogooder) on Oxfam America’s “The Politics of Poverty” Blog: “More U.S. international aid data released–now what? A user’s perspective”.  Jennifer interviews Hon. Albert Kan-Dapaah a former minister in the Ghanaian government and former chair of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.  He finds the current data important but “pretty scanty” toward meeting the needs of public officials and of civil society watchdogs.

New bi-partisan legislation—the Foreign Aid Transparency Act of 2013—would open the books on US foreign aid. More transparency will enable people like Hon. Albert Kan-Dapaah to hold their governments accountable for how they invest US resources. Learn more and contact your representatives here.

And stay tuned to Politics of Poverty to get more user perspectives on aid transparency data!

IRIN Africa | KENYA: “Perfect storm” brewing among urban poor

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IRIN Africa | KENYA: “Perfect storm” brewing among urban poor | Kenya | Children | East African Food Crisis | Economy | Food Security | Urban Risk.

The Kenya Lobby, Corruption, and Hunger

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Here is a link from the newly published digest of 2009 foreign lobbyist disclosure filings for Kenya from ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundations.

Assume some focus this year is on the MCC vote coming up for December 15 and the ICC indictment situation on a similar timeframe. New Congressional leadership and staff to cultivate for the new year. And then there’s the corruption.  [Update: here is a story from this fall in The Hill magazine entitled “Kenya turns to K Street to help reshape image”.]

Today at the Voice of America, John Githongo contradicts Government of Kenya spokesman Alfred Mutua regarding criticism of Kenya as a “swamp of corruption” in the wikileaked cables:

Kenya government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the comments are “malicious and a total misrepresentation of Kenya and its leaders.” However anti-corruption crusader John Githongo called them “quite accurate.” Githongo investigated domestic bribery and fraud as a journalist, and later as Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics of Kenya under the presidency of Mwai Kibaki.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation is expected to be worse next year:

NAIROBI, 30 November 2010 (IRIN) – Kenya is likely to witness worsening food security, significant disease outbreaks, and further pockets of conflict in 2011, as well as a continuing flow of refugees from Somalia, say aid officials.

“There is a fear of La Niña compromising the [food security] gains made,” said Aeneas Chuma, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator at the 30 November launch of Kenya’s 2011 Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan (EHRP) appeal. Most of the US$525 million funding requested is expected to meet food security and refugee needs.

At present, the number of food aid beneficiaries has dropped to 1.2 million from a peak of 3.8 million during the 2009 drought due to favourable October-December 2009 short rains and March-May 2010 long rains. But numbers are expected to rise, with poor rains in eastern and northeastern regions, as well as lower levels in western areas.