kenya poverty

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Measuring and Monitoring Poverty

The Case of Kenya

Jane Kabubo-Mariara

University of Nairobi

and

Godfrey K. Ndeng¶epresentation at the PADI workshop Serena-Beach Hotel,

Mombasa-Kenya May 7th-8th 2004.



Outline of Presentation

Background and introduction

PRS/ERS in Kenya

Measur ing and Monitor ing pover ty- Kenya

± Quantitative surveys

± Qualitative Assessments

Pover ty levels from the two methods

Utilizing the statistics/information

Mixed qualitative and quantitative

Conclusion and recommendations



Background and introduction

In 1997, the WB and the IMF endorsed the preparation andimplementation of pover ty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) byborrower countr ies seeking to benef it from the enhanced HIPCinitiative.

The PRSP framework entails governments working with their respective stakeholders to draw up pover ty reduction strategy

papers, which once approved by IMF and the WB, provide the basisfor negotiations and agreements among these stakeholders on theplanning and implementation of pover ty interventions in a country.

The PRSP replaced the policy framework paper ( PFP) as the over-arching document that outlines the policy directions and resourceallocation frameworks for IMF and Wor ld bank lending in countr ieseligible for concessional assistance.

Cover ing a three-year time frame, it is envisaged to become thecentrepiece of policy dialogue in all countr ies receiving concessional lending f lows from the WB and the IMF.



In Kenya, the PRSP is the product of a broad based andinclusive consultation that took place at national,regional, distr ict and divisional level in the country. Thecountrywide consultative process was launched inOctober 2000 at a National Stakeholders For um held inNairobi.

It inc

luded a

lls

take

ho

lder ca

tegor

ies

withspec

ia

l attention to the civil society, vulnerable groups (women,

youth, pastoralist groups and people with disabilities)and the pr ivate sector. To ensure inclusiveness andbroad-based par ticipation, the consultations wereorganized within a national framework consisting of:Divisional consultations; Distr ict Consultative For ums,Provincial Workshops: National Consultative andStakeholders For ums; Thematic Groups; and Sector Working Groups.



The PRS process

The process received continuous policy guidance from

Cabine

t,

the Cab

ine

tS

ub-Comm

ittee on Econom

icManagement, the National Consultative For um, a

National Steer ing Committee compr ising of Chairpersonsof the var ious Sector Working Groups, Permanent Secretar ies, Civil Society organizations and the pr ivate

sector.

The entire PRSP Consultative and Strategy development process was co-ordinated by a Technical PRSPSecretar iat compr ising of Kenyan professionals from the

Government, civil society, pr ivate sector and the donor community. Kenya¶s Pover ty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) outlines the pr ior ities and measures necessaryfor pover ty reduction and economic growth.



PRS cycle

The PRS is central to the development of a pro-poor and pro-growth

Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) budget.

The three year MTEF is designed to implement the pr ior ities aimed

at improving the quality of expenditure and the shif ting of resourcestowards pro-poor activities and programmes.

The monitor ing and evaluation component of the PRS seeks to

ensure effectiveness and eff iciency in the allocation of economic

resources to pro-poor development initiatives.



Strategies identif ied through the PRSP consultation

formed the basis of the Medium Term ExpenditureFramework budget for 2001/2002 and 2002/2003.

Initially agr iculture and r ural development emerged as

the highest pr ior ity nationally. The people indicated thatthis sector whose growth over the years had slowed

down was one major contr ibutor to the r ising pover ty

levels.

Thi

s emph

asis

has no

ws

hif ted and

the

hig

hes

tpr

ior

ity

today is given to human resource development, physical

infrastr ucture and agr iculture and r ural development



Measures to strengthen the PRS monitoring and

evaluation

to

improve

transparency, acco

un

tab

ility andresponsibility of all stakeholders in the

implementation of the PRS/Economic RecoveryStrategy (ERS), the Ministry of Planning andNational Development has been working with stakeholders in coming up with an integratedsystem for Monitor ing and Evaluation (M&E).

The aim of the integrated M&E is to provide thegovernment and stakeholders with reliablemechanisms to measure the eff iciency and theeffectiveness of public policy in service deliveryto the people.



PRS/ERS

At the time the NARC government took over from

KANU, the economy was right at the bottom and

there was a feeling that the PRSP alone would not

lead the economy back to a sustainable growth path.

The new government therefore decided to develop a

strategy that would give a short term remedy to the

economic problems facing the country. This led to the

PRSP being validated into an Economic Recovery

Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation

(Republic of Kenya, 2003a).



PRS/ERS cont

Today the government recognizes that the sector that would

revive the economy is the Physical infrastructure sector and

also recognized the need to identify with the PRSP priorities of

agriculture and human resource development for the provision

of basic needs.

Government has developed an investment programme that will

lead to growth in employment and reduction of poverty.



PRS/ERS cont¶d

The PRS/ERS process has tr iggered an increased

demand for detailed pover ty data and the monitor ing and

evaluation of pover ty programmes.

The Government has in turn responded to this demandby establishing two units in the Ministry of Planning and

National Development, namely:

The Pover ty Analysis and Research Unit (PARU) in theCentral Bureau of Statistics and the Monitor ing and

Evaluation Unit (MEU).



Measur ing and Monitor ing Pover ty- Kenya

± Quantitative Pover ty surveys

Since 1990 3 wms ±1992, 1994, 1997

10,000 hhlds

± Qualitative Pover ty Assessments

Since 1990 3 PPAs 1994, 1996, 2001

10 districts each time



Def inition of Pover ty from the Assessments

Pover ty is multidimensional and complex in nature and manifestsitself in var ious forms.

No single def inition can exhaustively capture all aspects of pover ty.

According to the Par ticipatory Pover ty Assessment surveys (PPAs),

³pover ty is hunger, lack of shelter; sickness and being unable to seea doctor (afford medical care). Pover ty can also be def ined as not

being able to go to school, not knowing how to read, not being able

to speak proper ly. Pover ty is not having a job and fear for the f uture,

living one day at a time. Pover ty is losing a child to illness brought

about by malnutr ition and unclean water.



PRSP/ERS definition of poverty

The PRS/ERS similar ly recognized that pover ty is multi-

dimensional and pover ty was def ined to include

inadequacy of income and depr ivation of basic needs

and r ights, and lack of access to productive assets as

well as to social infrastr ucture and markets.

The quantitative approach of measur ing pover ty def ines

the poor as those who cannot afford basic food and non-

food items. The PRS/ERS adopted the quantitative

measures of pover

ty based on

the 1997 WMS da

ta. T

he1997 Welfare Monitor ing Survey estimated the absolute

pover ty line at Kshs 1,239 per person per month and

Kshs 2,648 respectively for r ural and urban areas.



IN SUMMARY pover ty def ined

Using the qualitative approach based on var ious Par ticipatoryPover ty Assessments (PPAs) under taken since 1994, the peopledef ine, view and exper ience pover ty in different ways.

In the third PPA of 2001, people mainly def ined pover ty as theinability to meet their basic needs. Pover ty was associated with

features such as lack of land, unemployment, inability to feedoneself and one's family, lack of proper housing, poor health andinability to educate children and pay medical bills. Though different

people and communities def ined pover ty differently, pover ty wasinvar iably associated with the inability to meet/afford cer tain basicneeds.

It is clear from the multi-faceted nature of pover ty that the natureand character istics of pover ty go beyond income measures alone.This means that cer tain aspects of pover ty can be captured byquantitative surveys while others can be established by qualitativestudies. In Kenya the two approaches have been used to generateinformation on the magnitude, extent, nature and character istics of pover ty.



Who are the poor?

Generally, from bo

th the q

ua

lita

tive and

the q

uan

tita

tivepover ty assessments, the poor in Kenya tend to be

clustered into cer tain social categor ies namely: the

landless; people with disabilities; female headed

households; households headed by people without

formal education; pastoralists in drought prone ASALdistr icts; unskilled and semi-skilled casual labourers;

AIDS orphans; street children and beggars; subsistence

farmers; urban slum dwellers; and unemployed youth.



But how acceptable and comparable are pover ty

measures?

Quantitative:1239 kshs per month per person e.g amongnomadic/pastoral communities«who consume non-marketableproducts that are not typically captured by the food basket..wildfr uits/berr ies, animal blood etc..

This overstates pover ty« among the nomads/pastoralists

Allows compar ison of different communities and therefore objective.

Qualitative.. Wealth ranking presents relative type of pover ty anddoes not allow objective compar ison eg. Kajiado and Makueni distr icts which are quite different.. Ethnic-cultural..livelihoods etc..

Communal ownership« etc The poor in Kajiado are r ich in Makueni.. Based on land, animals,

wifes, children ,and conversely the r ich in Makueni distr ict are poor in Kajiado.. And what do we tell policy makers?



Monitoring Poverty in Kenya

Frequency of surveys

The welfare monitoring surveys conducted in 1992, 1994 and1997 attempted to monitor the welfare of the people of Kenya.Since then no other quantitative survey based onincome/expenditure has been undertaken since 1997, but plansare underway to conduct a national survey (Kenya Integrated

Household Budget Survey (KIHBS) 2004/05. After this longyear survey, there are plans to conduct a Core WelfareIndicators Questionnaire type of survey once every five yearsor in between a major sample survey such as the KIHBS.

Non-income/expenditure surveys- KDHS every 5 years.. Maternal and

child health indicators.. Immunization, malnutrition, morbidity, mortality,fertility levels and regulation, HIV/AIDS

± MICS 2000, labour force 1998 and many other smaller and area/institutionspecific surveys..eg ILRI, Tegemeo, Universities,Aga Khan etc not to mentionPPAs



Compar ing quantitative surveys over time

Th

e compar ison of

the res

ults of

the We

lfare Mon

itor

ing S

urveyser ies (WMS I, II and III) may not be completely appropr iate.

methodological concerns that may render compar isons untenable

± Sampling and non-sampling errors: recall errors,memory lapse,

± Timing of Welfare surveys/Seasonal effects: WMS I was carr ied out inthe months of November and December 1992; WMS II between June

and Aug

us

t1994; and WMS III

were cond

uc

ted from Apr

il to J

une 1997

± Questionnaire differences: Questionnaire differences may alsocontr ibute to the differences in survey results. There has beenconcer ted effor t to improve on the questionnaire design and content based on exper iences gained from each of the rounds. For instance,the questionnaire for 1997 WMS III gathered information on more non-food items, (par ticular ly by urban wage earners) than the 1994 WMSII

± WMS ser ies covered only people living in µdwelling str uctures¶. Thismeans that some urban groups living in the most desperate conditionsescape the sampling frame because they are either not living inidentif iable dwellings or are diff icult to reach. This applies for example tobeggars, street children and women in destitute conditions.



Incomparable quantitative survey results

In the calculation of regional deflators, low income item weights and prices

for the reference region (Nairobi) are used for all rural districts and urban

areas. This method of deriving regional deflators has a limitation in that

Nairobi¶s low-income consumption patterns are imposed on other regions

whose expenditure budget shares may be quite different. This is done because there are no current regional item consumption weights/patterns

for rural households. During the computation, the rural deflators have

excluded items such as rent and transport which tend to have high weights

only in urban areas.

Unrepresentative prices from 16 market centres- Lamu and Tana-River

districts applied Mombasa/Malindi prices etc..



Consistency of pover ty estimates over time

Despite these limitations, the surveys have provided

benchmark data for poverty analysis in the country that has led

to more informed and focused debate on how the challenges

ahead may be tackled. and formed the basis for drawing our

PRSP/ERS policies.



Robustness of poverty trends based on repeated surveys

The estimates show that Central province has

consistently emerged the least poor region in all the four surveys.

Coast province was ranked number 5 in three of the four

surveys and similar ly Western region has been ranked 4in three of the four surveys. This indicates that the

pover ty trends are somewhat robust in spite of the

diff iculties of compar ing surveys discussed above.



Experience with Participatory Poverty Assessments

Since the PPAs are concerned with peoples¶ perception of poverty there are

two main findings that are of immediate concern for policy; the causes of poverty and coping strategies adopted by the poor.

Perceived Causes of Poverty

Low agricultural productivity and poor marketing

Insecurity

Unemployment and low wages

Bad governance

Landlessness:

Poor physical infrastructure

High cost of basic social services: Bad weather



Coping Strategies

The PPAs reveal that several strategies have been adopted by the

poor to cope with pover ty. Some of the strategies have beendescr ibed as negative and others as positive

N egative Coping Strategies

Thuggery

Petty theft especially on farms:

Prostitution

Child labour

Street families and children

Corruption

Drug abuse Suicide

Illicit brewing and drunkeness



Positive Coping Strategies

Growth of slums: However slums dwellers are associated with many negativecoping strategies

Cheap Clothes

N on-formal Schools

Harambee Self-help spirit

Begging and borrowing

Bursaries

Merry-go-rounds

Petty business hawking and kiosks

Seasonal Adjustments

Food Credit Facilities

Family Planning It has been established that all communities know what pover ty is and

descr ibe it in all forms of lacking, but of most impor tance is that they haveclear suggestions about what the government and NGOs should do to reducepover ty. They know it can be eradicated. This is in fact the f irst positive move- that they have hope.



Results from PPAs highlight a number of tasks for the Governmentand NGOs in pover ty reduction.

Credit Facilities

Information and Access to Markets

Subsidies and Technological Development Community Participation

Step up Water Facilities

Expansion of Health Services

Infrastructure

Training Extension Services

Security

Family Planning

Prohibitive laws e.g inheritance of land by women..

.

Recommended Action towards Poverty Reduction



The Relationship between Qualitative and Quantitative

Evidence

Many times, statistical assessments always r un the r iskof not getting public acceptance because they might not

correspond with the general perception of pover ty and

also due to the inability of the public to understand

quantitative statistical assessments.

Generally and depending on the observer¶s own social

position, pover ty may appear over- or under-stated.

Ordinary people¶s own perception of whom and how

many are poor, if obtained in an order ly and non-biased

manner, is therefore an impor tant means of cross-checking results of purely statistical analysis.



To begin with it is questionable whether PPAs aim at

absolute wealth measures at all.

PPA tr ies to position households compared to the others

in the community, and this is why cut-off points between

the poor and the non-poor are rather sought from the

focus group discussions rather than from a pr ior i

considerations on what a minimum diet /standard of

living.etc these can be done..

In Kenya an attempt was made to compare the

par ticipatory pover ty assessment of 1994 (PPA I) with the WMS II, 1994. From the compar ison, four points

clear ly emerge:



one, compared to all other available sources, par ticipatoryassessment gives higher pover ty f igures than the statistical one.

( a difference of 15-30%)

Second, even within the money-metr ic pover ty def inition, the publicmay disagree with statisticians/economists. The fact that poor people have to forego considerable non-food consumptionexpenditure they consider essential even by modest standards of living is only par tly captured in the statistical def inition. Or buy moreessential nonfood and appear ing to be food poor..( sounds irrational

but consider a situation where your child is sick and the money you

have is only enough for food or medicine.. What do you do..?

Third it has been repor ted from var ious pover ty ranking exercisesthat people are initially somewhat reluctant to character izeth

emselves and

the

ir ne

ig

hbo

urs as poor,

le

ta

lone very poor.

On the other hand, when people associate a par ticipatory surveywith possible government cum donor spending to follow, they mayoverstate their distress.



Four th, methodological problems ar ise in the PPA. Due

to the absence of an appropr iate translation of ³middle

class´ or ³average´ in vernacular language, people arenormally asked to classify themselves only as either

µr ich¶, µpoor¶ or µvery poor¶.

The absence of an average man - or

woman - renderscompar ison all but impossible: for instance, 2.9 % of the

households in PPA II were ranked µr ich¶, 55.4 % µpoor¶

and 41.7 percent µvery poor¶. This implies that almost

everyone is poor!!!

The power of PPA tools venn diagrams-popular ly known

as chapatis is recognised as very powerf ul one e.g

institutional relations with communities«Gok,ngo etc



Conclusion and Recommendations

the measure of pover ty def ined in most of Kenya¶squantitative pover ty refers to a lack of command over

marketable goods and services (both purchased and

own produced Turkana case).

Although this measurement is undeniably impor tant, it is

clear ly not the only dimension of well-being. Command

over non-market goods, such as some publicly provided

services(value of free pr imary education,health etc) may

be an impor tant omission in conventional pover tymeasures.



welfare measures may also vary depending on theseason the survey is conducted. In one round survey, if pover ty incidence is for example observed to increase, it

will not be known whether this is due to new poor having joined the existing poor, or whether it is the net outcomeof a dynamic process whereby some people escapepover ty and others become poor.

Whether pover ty is chronic or transitory can thereforebest be established by longer per iod surveys of samehouseholds.

We recommend that Kenya begins to build a panel datato assist in establishing those in transitory

pover ty/c

hron

ic pover

ty. Representative pr ices should also be collected in our

for thcoming Kihbs.

How do we handle seasonality in the for thcomingKIHBS?



What about quality of food items..eg.meat?

We recommend that if possible a PPA be organised alongside the

KIHBS but be designed in a manner that will allow sensible

compar ison of the results..such will tease out the many problems

discussed above..



Finally, in spite of the shor tcomings of the surveys on

pover ty conducted in the last decade in Kenya, these

surveys form no

ton

ly a good benc

hmark for pover

tymonitor ing, but also a spr ingboard for f ur ther pover ty

diagnostics and feedback into the data collection

systems. (pover ty maps used survey and census data)

the consultation of PRS/ERS processes represent a

good entry point for opening up the policy making

process and improving the def icit in governance that

exists in Kenya. However, there is urgent need to

develop str uctures that will enable or allow thecommunities to f ully par ticipate in the planning,

implementation and monitor ing of pover ty programmes

and projects.



Thank you

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