The Kenya Poverty alleviation strategy paper 2011
identifies three pillars for poverty eradication in Kenya. These pillars are
economic growth rate, political stability and social cohesion. Considering the
three pillars and the specifics under each pillar, it seems poverty reduction
in Kenya is tied to economic growth rate. It does appear that making poverty
reduction effective has to start with how poverty has been conceptualized and
theoretical frameworks underpinning the conceptualization. It is difficult to
come up with a poverty reduction strategy because of the difficulty in defining
poverty.
The poverty reduction strategy by government
seems to be neo-liberal leaning whereby aggregate economic growth is assumed to
provide all required for poverty alleviation. For theorists and development
practitioners, Kenya faces structural challenges as well as cultural challenges
in the fight against poverty; therefore, there is need for a structural as well
as cultural pronged strategy to poverty alleviation.
There have been efforts to tackle both structural
and cultural issues that perpetuate deprivation for a majority of Kenyans. Such
efforts have been championed by international development actors as well as
national actors. Have the efforts or programs implemented so far been
effective? The jury is out there and there are huge contestations on how
effective given programs have been. Just as there are contestations about the
definition of poverty, contestations on outcomes from poverty reduction projects
only persist when we are guided by ideal-type thinking. There is an assumption
that there are ideal conditions that must persist everywhere. While this line
of thinking is valid; there are basic livelihood and survival minimums that we
all need to survive, the issue is those survival minimums are context specific.
Therefore, we can contest outcomes of poverty reduction strategies to the
extent they do not contribute to transformation towards the ideal type
conditions. Modernization provided a Motif around which poverty reduction
strategies have been curved. Macro considerations notwithstanding, decisively,
when one considers individuals and household livelihoods in given settings, one
may then more justifiably declare whether interventions have been effective or
not.
When is a poverty reduction strategy or program
effective? Such a question can only be answered by considering the outcomes of
programs. However, Even as we consider outcomes of given programs, the question
of effective from whose perspective has to be considered. Contestations on outcomes from past or current
programs lead further questioning the approaches or methods. Some programs have
been tailored to address challenges faced by people in a humanitarian crisis.
Seasonal poverty due to famines has been a recurrent humanitarian crisis.
Consequently, many programs targeting the poor and poor regions have had to do
with cash transfers and food distribution. On the other hand, we have had more
structural programs like infrastructure development and capacity building aimed
at structural transformation in given sectors of the economy.
One criticism of the programs by the different
actors engaged in poverty alleviation is that they are not linked or tied to a
holistic social transformation agenda. We have reactive programs that are more
crisis tackling oriented than proactive and production based. It is my
considered opinion that unless it is a humanitarian crisis, the only way of
dealing poverty and effective blow is through activating production. What would
a production-based agenda entail? Ultimately, such a production strategy has to
tie possible production processes in a context to the gratification of needs of
the poor. For this to happen, first, the government needs to come up with a
social policy that puts basic needs at the centre of the national development
agenda. The national development agenda is about allocation of scarce resources
to processes by which people in a country satisfy their interests. Unfortunately,
in most nations, it is assumed that wealth and power accumulation interests of
the ruling class suffices and supersedes interests of the poor as interests of
the nation.
A social transformation agenda must necessarily be
holistic and multi-pronged but integrated. Such a social policy should consider
social context, social networks, cultural logics and the aspirations of the
people. In such consideration, ideal type motifs like the modernization dream
ought to be substituted by context informed development path. How does it
relate to making poverty reduction strategies effective? First, it means that focus
is on how to turn each a people, in their context into production agents and
ensures sustained production of what facilitates them meeting basic needs. Secondly,
it means that even when responding to presenting needs, development actors have
to roll out programs tied to a holistic long-term socio-economic transformation
agenda. This means that for every a people in Kenya, with respect to their
context, actors should facilitate production and marketing of produce both
locally and internationally. A production-based strategy to poverty reduction
would shift focus to production capacity of the poor hence their empowerment.
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