Where you are likely to be poor in Kenya

More than a fifth of Kenya’s poor live in five counties, indicating the wide regional income disparities in the country.

Data from the Kenya Poverty Report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that 3.92 million out of 19.1 million poor Kenyans live in Nakuru, Bungoma, Nairobi, Kakamega and Kilifi counties.

According to the survey results, Nakuru had the highest number of people living below the poverty line at 893 thousand, followed by Bungoma at 775 thousand.

According to the report, poverty was defined as those who spend less than Sh3,947 per month in rural areas and Sh7,193 in urban areas.

Despite having the third largest number of poor people at 759,000, Nairobi County has the lowest proportion of poor people out of the total population at 14.8 percent.

The ongoing unemployment crisis in the country which is a major driver of poverty has been a ticking time bomb with many youths choosing crime and vices like prostitution to support themselves.

The central Kenya counties of Nyeri, Kiambu and Kireniga also reported low poverty rates of 17.5, 18.7 and 18.9 percent respectively, highlighting the huge disparity and unequal distribution of financial resources in the country.

The report also indicated that urban residents are emerging from poverty at a faster rate than residents in rural areas, as the rate decreased by 7.6 percentage points in urban areas compared to a decrease of 2.8 percentage points in rural areas in 2021.

The arid and semi-arid districts of Turkana, Mandera and Garissa had the highest incidence of poverty at 77.7 percent, 71.9 and 68.3 percent, respectively.

On average, the prevalence of poverty was higher in rural areas, with two out of five people living in poverty compared to three out of 10 urban dwellers.

The proportion of poor in the country decreased by 4.3 percentage points in 2021 from 42.9 percent in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic to 38.6 percent.

→ (email protected)