Boosting Equitable Development as Kenya Strives to Become an Upper Middle-Income Country

The World Bank Group (WBG) Board of Executive Directors voiced its support for the WBG’s latest six-year strategy to support Kenya in its ongoing efforts towards green, resilient, and inclusive development.

The Kenya Country Partnership Framework (CPF) is a joint strategy between the World Bank, the International Finance Cooperation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the government to promote shared prosperity and reduce poverty for the people of Kenya. Informed by extensive stakeholder consultations, the CPF seeks to drive faster and more equitable labor productivity and income growth, greater equity in development outcomes across the country, and help sustain Kenya’s natural capital for greater climate resilience.

“The people of Kenya are in a position to reap even greater dividends from the country’s robust economic growth in terms of more durable poverty reduction,” said Keith Hansen, World Bank Country Director for Kenya. “Tackling the drivers of inequality now will help to ensure that Kenya can achieve and maintain more equitable development in the long run.”

Over the past decade, Kenya’s economy has outperformed its Low- and Middle-Income Country (LMIC) peers with the growing number of better-educated and healthier Kenyans in the labor force contributing more than any other factor to rising gross domestic product (GDP). More recently, however, the pace of poverty reduction, and then the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed how vulnerable many households are when faced with shocks. Though Kenya’s economy is rebounding from the pandemic and projected to grow by an average 5.4% during 2022-24, the ongoing drought and global inflation are causing poverty to rise. The CPF finds that Kenya is still well positioned to secure more inclusive growth and the WBG is ready to provide support that targets lagging areas and communities with better services and infrastructure that build household and community resilience. In doing so, it aims to help Kenya avoid the inequality and productivity traps experienced by other Middle-Income Countries (MICs).

“Kenya’s private sector is poised to drive faster job creation and to seize new opportunities from global and regional integration,” noted Jumoke Jagun-Dokunmu, IFC Regional Director for Kenya. “This will require a more level playing field for competition and innovation for large and small firms and between public and private enterprises.”

The CPF also aims to help raise the productivity of small firms, small producers, and women entrepreneurs, improve the investment climate across the country, and stimulate more private participation in public service delivery. To support Kenya’s response to climate change, the CPF has programmed investments to reduce water insecurity, and to mobilize more climate finance for both public and private investments.

“MIGA aims to unlock more private sector investment in climate responsive projects in Kenya through innovative financial solutions,” said Merli Baroudi, MIGA Director for Economics and Sustainability. “Kenya’s impressive progress in mobilizing private capital for renewable energy augurs well for other sectors.”

The CPF draws on Kenya’s Vision 2030, the new government’s development agenda, a Systematic Country Diagnostic, a Country Private Sector Diagnostic, a Completion and Learning Review of the previous Country Partnership Strategy, and over 34 stakeholder consultations, including with Kenya’s diaspora. The World Bank Group is Kenya’s largest development financier. IFC’s portfolio of private sector investments in Kenya is its fourth largest and fastest growing in Sub-Saharan Africa and MIGA’s financial operations in Kenya are its third largest program in Africa.

Source – World Bank