As Kenya marks 50 years of independence from Great Britain on Thursday, politicians, commentators and citizens are reflecting on how the country has changed – and looking ahead to what the next-half century has in store.
Commemorative stamps have been printed, more than 60,000 people are expected at a concert in Nairobi on Thursday, and the anniversary has kicked off a lively discussion on Twitter, with messages of celebration intermingled with those of concern for the country’s future. Some say the September attacks on Nairobi’s Westgate mall, and the charges facing President Uhuru Kenyatta at the international criminal court, have cast a pall on the festivities.
We’ve pulled out the data on a number of key development indicators to look at how Kenya has changed over the past 50 years. However, no set of statistics can fully capture the changes the country and its citizens have experienced. Let us know in the thread below what you think is missing.
Population
Kenya’s population has more than quadrupled since 1963, growing from more than 8.1m to more than 43m people. Today, Kenya has the sixth highest population in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Tanzania, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria.
Life expectancy has risen from 48 years in 1963 to 60 in 2011, above the 56-year average for sub-Saharan Africa. But life expectancy in Kenya today is the same as it was in the mid-1980s, having dropped to a low of 52.8 years in 2002 before rising again.
Economy
Kenya is one of Africa’s “Lion economies”, according to business commentators who continue to gape at the high levels of economic growth on the continent. East Africa’s largest economy, Kenya has a set of ambitious targets in its bid to become a middle-income country by 2030.
1963, Kenya’s gross national income (GNI) per capita stood at around $100 – by 2012, that figure was estimated at $850. Economies reach the World Bank’s lower middle-income category when their GNI per capita surpasses $1,036.
Poverty
Poverty levels remain high in Kenya. The country is unlikely to meet the millennium development goal (MDG) to halve extreme poverty by 2015. The most recent data suggests roughly 45% of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, and more than 65% on less than $2.
While progress has been made since 2000, when an estimated 52% of people lived on less than $1.25 a day, more people live in poverty in Kenya today than in the early 1990s.
Health
Kenya will also struggle to meet many health-related MDGs, despite progress in a number of areas. Child mortality rates, for example, have dropped significantly since independence. In 1963, as many as 175 children under five were dying per 1,000 live births; by 2011, that figure had fallen to less than 73. The proportion of people living with HIV, meanwhile, has fallen from a high of 10% in the late 1990s to 6% in 2012.
Government spending on health remains low, at less than 6% of national expenditures in 2011, compared with 11% in neighbouring Tanzania. There are still fewer than 20 doctors per 100,000 people in Kenya, though this is significantly higher than in the 1960s, when that number was closer to eight.
Mobile phones
Kenya is now seen as almost synonymous with African technology and innovation. Stories about the growth of mobile phone use – and related innovations such as M-Pesa, which allows people to transfer money using a mobile phone – have played a large part in this.
In 2012, there were more than 71 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 Kenyans – significantly more than in neighbouring Tanzania, where the figure is 57, and sub-Saharan Africa, where the average is 53. In the context of the past half-century, however, mobile phone use is still a new phenomenon.
What do you think?
No five charts could ever capture the changes and dynamics of a country over 50 years. If you live or have lived in Kenya, we want to hear from you. How do these figures match your experiences? Have any of these changes had a profound impact on your life? What other important milestones – positive or negative – would you add? And looking ahead to the next 50 years, what do you predict for Kenya in 2063? Post your comment in the thread below or tell us on Twitter @gdndevelopment using the #KenyaAt50 hashtag.
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