Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile: Kenya, June 2007 

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COUNTRY PROFILE: KENYA 

June 2007 

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COUNTRY 

Formal Name: Republic of Kenya. 

Short Form: Kenya. 

Term for Citizen(s): Kenyan(s). 

Capital: Nairobi. 

Major Cities: The country’s largest cites are Nairobi, the capital and chief manufacturing center; 

Mombasa, the principal seaport; and Kisumu, the chief port on Lake Victoria. Smaller cities 

include Nakuru, a commercial and manufacturing center in the Eastern Rift Valley; and Eldoret, 

an industrial center in western Kenya. The population of cities, according to the 1999 census, 

was Nairobi, 1,346,000; Mombasa, 465,000; Kisumu, 185,000; Nakuru, 163,000; and Eldoret, 

105,000. 

Independence: December 12, 1963, from the United Kingdom. 

Public Holidays: New Year’s Day (January 1); Good Friday (movable date in March or April); 

Easter Monday (movable date in March or April); Labor Day (May 1); Madaraka Day, which 

celebrates self-government (June 1); Moi Day (October 10); Kenyatta Forces Day (October 20); 

Eid al Fitr (movable date according to the Islamic calendar); Jamhuri/Independence Day 

(December 12); Christmas Day (December 25); and Boxing Day (December 26). 

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Flag: Kenya’s flag features three equal horizontal bands of black (top), red, 

and green; the red band is edged in white. Centered on the flag is a large 

warrior’s shield covering crossed spears. 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 

Prehistory and Early History: Eastern Africa may have provided the setting for the earliest 

development of the human species. Archaeologists working in the Rift Valley region, beginning 

with Mary and Louis Leakey in the 1930s, have unearthed fossils of several species of 

protohumans dating to as much as 20 million years ago. Recent finds near Kenya’s Lake Turkana 

indicate that hominids lived in the area 2.6 million years ago. Ancestors of modern Kenya’s 

population began arriving in the region around 2000 B.C., when Cushitic-speaking pastoralists 

migrated south from the Ethiopia highlands. Between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500, Nilotic speakers 

arrived, along with Bantu-speaking peoples, who now make up three-quarters of Kenya’s 

population. 
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On Kenya’s coast, trade with the nearby Arabian Peninsula was well-established by A.D. 100. In 

the medieval period, Arabs settled on the coast, establishing several autonomous city-states 

(including Mombasa, Malindi, and Pate) ruled by sultans. As Arabs and the local Bantu-speaking 

tribes intermarried, a distinct civilization and a new language emerged, a mixture of Arabic and 

Bantu, called Swahili. Swahili became the lingua franca of the coastal trade that exchanged trade 

goods from Kenya’s interior⎯animal skins, ivory and horn, agricultural produce, and 

slaves⎯for goods from the Middle East and even the Far East. Arab dominance on the coast was 

eclipsed by the arrival in 1498 of the Portuguese, whose control gave way in turn to renewed 

Arab control under the Imam of Oman in the 1600s. In the mid-nineteenth century, British 

influence superseded that of the Arabs. Unlike their Arab predecessors, the British showed 

interest in controlling land beyond the coastal region and encouraged European explorers to map 

the interior. 

Colonial Era: British colonial control of Kenya dates from the Berlin Conference of 1885, when 

the European powers partitioned East Africa into spheres of influence, with present-day Kenya 

passing to the British. Beginning in 1895, a railroad was built from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake 

Victoria in order to facilitate trade with the interior and with Uganda. The British government 

established the East African Protectorate and in 1920 made Kenya a British crown colony. The 

British opened the fertile highlands to white settlers, who established themselves as large-scale 

farmers. Extensive tracts of the best land were taken from Africans and reserved for white 

settlers, who eventually gained control of the colonial government. The white settler-dominated 

government denied the dispossessed Africans political participation, restricted their cultivation of 

cash crops such as coffee, permitted forced labor, and maintained a “white highlands” policy that 

restricted the Kikuyu, one of the largest tribes, to overcrowded reserves. Other tribes and nonwhites such as East Indians also faced restrictions. 

Protest by Africans, which began in the 1920s, peaked between 1952 and 1956 with the so-called 

“Mau-Mau” Emergency, an armed Kikuyu-led insurrection directed against white settler 

domination and British colonial rule. The British put Kenya under a state of emergency until 

1959 and imprisoned many of the colony’s nationalist leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a 

British-educated Kikuyu and an activist since the 1920s. After the Mau-Mau revolt abated, 

Britain increased African representation in the colony’s legislative council until, in 1961, there 

was an African majority. Kenya became independent on December 12, 1963, and the next year 

became a republic and joined the Commonwealth. Kenyatta, head of the Kenya African National 

Union (KANU), became Kenya’s first president. 

Independence under Kenyatta: Kenyatta engineered successive measures that increased the 

powers vested in the presidency, giving the executive, for example, the power to detain political 

opponents without trial if they posed a threat to public order. By 1969, KANU was the sole 

political party in a de facto one-party state. To forestall opposition and tribal conflict, Kenyatta 

relied on largesse, dispensing offices⎯with all the wealth such patronage entailed⎯across 

ethnic groups. In the economy, he pursued pro-Western, essentially free-market capitalist 

policies. Seeking to stem the outflow of capital underway since 1961, he backed policies 

favorable to foreign investors and conciliated white settlers (55,000 in 1962). Foreign investors 

were free to remit profits and to own property, albeit sometimes on condition of some 

government co-ownership. Whites were guaranteed ownership rights to land and to 
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compensation if they chose to leave. Kenyatta supported the distribution of white settler land to 

Africans through land purchase and struck a deal with Britain to help finance a massive land 

purchase. This “Africanization” of land included the transfer of more than 6,070 square 

kilometers of land to a group of well-connected Kenyans, mainly Kikuyu, and fostered the 

emergence of a new privileged class of African plantation owners. To counter criticism for 

catering to the privileged, Kenyatta also backed the distribution to Africans of hundreds of 

thousands of smallholdings and spent a third of the national budget on education. These policies 

brought sufficiently widespread improvement in living standards to ensure continuing support 

for the government. 

Under Kenyatta’s presidency, Kenya’s economic performance was better than most in Africa. 

The rate of economic growth was among the highest on the continent. Despite severe drought, 

two oil shocks, ethnic conflicts, and border skirmishes, Kenya’s gross national product grew on 

average at more than 6 percent a year, almost fivefold from 1971 to 1981. At the same time, the 

economy remained heavily dependent on a limited range of primary commodity exports and 

highly vulnerable to fluctuations in world commodity prices. Growth also generated tremendous 

disparities of wealth, much of which was in the hands of Kenyatta’s family and close associates. 

This concentration of wealth, along with an extremely high rate of population growth, meant that 

most Kenyans did not realize a correspondingly large increase in per capita well-being under 

Kenyatta’s leadership. 

The Moi Presidency and the Kibaki Government: At Kenyatta’s death at age 86 in August 

1978, Vice President Daniel arap Moi succeeded him as president. Popular at first, Moi promised 

to tackle corruption, limit foreign ownership of industry, review his predecessor’s land allocation 

policies and the self-enrichment of the ruling group, and abolish primary school fees. As a 

deteriorating economy necessitated austerity measures and aroused opposition, however, Moi 

began to follow in Kenyatta’s autocratic footsteps. In June 1982, the ruling party, KANU, had 

the National Assembly amend the constitution to make Kenya officially a one-party state and 

KANU the sole legal party. The same year, Moi weathered a coup attempt by junior ranks of the 

air force, 1,000 of whom he court-martialed. To discourage opposition, he dismantled the air 

force and closed the universities for a time. Throughout the 1980s, he further tightened political 

control even as corruption spread among his cohorts. Eventually, Western powers and 

international financial donor agencies balked at continuing to provide Kenya with vital financial 

aid. By the 1990s, they intermittently suspended grants and loans, pending political and 

economic reforms and improvement in the records on human rights and corruption. In 1991 Moi 

finally bowed to pressure from donors and opposition groups and agreed to an amendment 

reinstating multiparty elections. In 1992, in the first multiparty elections in 26 years, the 

ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge Moi and KANU from power. Moi also held 

onto power in the 1997 elections, amid charges of electoral fraud, rampant corruption, and lack 

of public safety, and despite ongoing deterioration in many economic indicators. Moi’s fifth and 

final term was marked by continuing suspensions of donor aid and the first proof of Kenya’s 

vulnerability to international terrorism, the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in 

Nairobi. 

Forced under the constitution to retire in December 2002, Moi engineered the nomination of 

Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s first leader, as KANU’s candidate for president. Mwai Kibaki, 
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who ran against Moi in 1992 and 1997 and once was his vice president, was the candidate of the 

multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Kibaki won 

decisively, and NARC achieved a solid parliamentary majority on an anticorruption platform. 

The election, although not free of vote-rigging, was the most credible since independence. 

Kibaki immediately faced major challenges in holding the ruling NARC together. The 

constituent parties of NARC were divided over drafts for a new constitution, which contained 

various controversial proposals, including, for example, a new office of prime minister, an upper 

chamber of parliament, devolution of powers to district level, and constitutional recognition of 

Islamic courts. In 2005 the NARC coalition splintered over the constitutional review process, 

with defectors joining with KANU to form a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic 

Movement. The opposition defeated the government’s final draft constitution in a popular 

referendum in November 2005. Discussions about a new constitution are continuing in the runup to the 2007 elections, in which Kibaki is expected to run for a second term as the candidate of 

the new NARC–Kenya party. 

Apart from the challenge of achieving cross-party consensus on a new constitution, the Kibaki 

administration has faced long-standing problems inherited from Kibaki’s predecessor—a 

sluggish agriculture-based economy, rundown infrastructure, poverty rates exceeding 50 percent, 

endemic corruption, spiraling crime, and a heavy burden of disease, including human 

immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). In addition, Kenya 

has seen growing ethnic tensions between coastal Muslims and other Kenyans about the former’s 

perceived exclusion from power. Also, new acts of terrorism in Mombasa alarmed authorities in 

November 2003, prompting travel advisories by Western governments. 

The early months of the Kibaki administration witnessed much progress, with the introduction of 

universal free primary education, the adoption of anticorruption measures, and a cleanup of the 

judiciary, as well as a resumption of robust economic growth after a long period of stagnation. 

International financial institutions, which had suspended development assistance in previous 

years, gave the new administration an early vote of confidence by resuming aid. Already by 

2004, however, disenchantment with the Kibaki administration had set in when progress against 

corruption stalled and no legal action against Moi and his cronies was undertaken. Kenya’s 

competent and honest anticorruption tsar, John Githongo, resigned in February 2005 and fled to 

the United Kingdom (UK), citing threats. He also complained of interference with investigations 

of high-level graft by government ministers and other scandals. Western goodwill toward Kenya 

dissipated, prompting the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands to cut back on aid and the 

UK, Kenya’s largest foreign investor, to slow investment. Donor country and investor wariness 

added to other woes, including a drought⎯the worst since 1971⎯that by January 2006 had put 

2.5 million Kenyans at risk of starvation. Since 2006, because of conflict in neighboring 

Somalia, Kenya has also faced increasing pressure from refugees. 
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GEOGRAPHY 

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Location: Kenya lies astride the equator in Eastern Africa between 

Somalia and Tanzania and bordering the Indian Ocean. 

Size: The total area of 582,650 square kilometers (somewhat larger 

than France) includes 13,400 square kilometers of water, mainly 

in Lake Turkana (also known as Lake Rudolf) and Kenya’s portion 

of Lake Victoria. 

Land Boundaries: Kenya’s land boundaries total 3,477 kilometers. 

The country is bounded by Ethiopia (861 kilometers), Somalia 

(682 kilometers), Sudan (232 kilometers), Tanzania (769 kilometers), 

and Uganda (933 kilometers). 

Length of Coastline: Kenya has 536 kilometers of coastline on the Indian Ocean. 

Maritime Claims: Kenya’s territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles. The exclusive economic 

(fishing) zone is 200 nautical miles, and the continental shelf extends to a 200-meter depth or to 

the depth of exploitation. 

Topography: Kenya rises from a low coastal plain on the Indian Ocean in a series of plateaus to 

more than 3,000 meters in the center of the country. An inland region of semi-arid, bush-covered 

plains constitutes most of the country’s land area. In the northwest, high-lying scrublands 

straddle Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf) and the Kulal Mountains. In the southwest lie the fertile 

grasslands and forests of the Kenya Highlands, one of the most successful agricultural 

production regions in Africa. North of Nairobi, the Kenya Highlands is bisected by the Great Rift 

Valley, an irregular depression that cuts through western Kenya from north to south in two 

branches. The Rift Valley is the location of the country’s highest mountains, including, in the 

eastern section, the snow-capped Mt. Kenya (5,199 meters), the country’s highest point and 

Africa’s second highest. In the south, mountain plains descend westward to the shores of Lake 

Victoria. 

Principal Rivers: Kenya’s principal rivers are the 710-kilometer-long Tana, and the Athi, both 

flowing southeast to the Indian Ocean. Other rivers include the Ewaso Ngiro, flowing northeast 

to the swamps of the Lorian Plain, and the Nzoia, Yala, and Gori, which drain into Lake 

Victoria. 

Climate: Kenya’s climate varies from tropical along the coast to arid in the interior, especially in 

the north and northeast. Intermittent droughts affect most of the country. Less than 15 percent of 

the country receives somewhat reliable rainfall of 760 millimeters or more per year, mainly the 

southwestern highlands near Lake Victoria and the coastal area, which is tempered by monsoon 

winds. Most of the country experiences two wet and two dry seasons. The driest month is 

August, with 24 millimeters average rainfall, and the wettest is April, the period of “long rains,” 

with 266 millimeters. The hottest month is February, with temperatures of 13°C to 28°C, and the 
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coolest is July, with temperatures of 11°C to 23°C. The highlands feature a bracing temperate 

climate. Nairobi, at an elevation of 1,820 meters, has a very pleasant climate throughout the year. 

Natural Resources: Kenya’s most valuable natural assets are rich agricultural land and a unique 

physiography and wildlife. The highly diverse wildlife is a key draw for the tourism industry. 

The country is not well endowed with mineral resources. Mineral resources currently exploited 

are gold, limestone, soda ash, salt, rubies, fluorspar, and garnets. At present, only 3 percent of the 

land is forested, a reduction by half over the past three decades. Kenya’s water resources are 

similarly under pressure. Kenya relies to a significant extent on hydropower. 

Land Use: Of Kenya’s land surface, between 7 and 8 percent is arable, while slightly less than 1 

percent is in permanent crops. According to a 1998 estimate, irrigated land totaled about 670 

square kilometers. 

Environmental Factors: Kenya faces serious interrelated environmental problems, including 

deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, water shortage and degraded water quality, poaching, 

and domestic and industrial pollution. Water resources are under pressure from agricultural 

chemicals and urban and industrial wastes, as well as from use for hydroelectric power. A 

shortage of water is expected to pose a problem in the coming years. Water-quality problems in 

lakes, including water hyacinth infestation in Lake Victoria, have contributed to a substantial 

decline in fishing output and endangered fish species. Output from forestry also has declined 

because of resource degradation. Overexploitation over the past three decades has reduced the 

country’s timber resources by one-half. At present only 3 percent of the land remains forested, 

and an estimated 5,000 hectares of forest are lost each year. This loss of forest aggravates 

erosion, the silting of dams and flooding, and the loss of biodiversity. In response to ecological 

disruption, activists have pressed with some success for policies that encourage sustainable 

resource use. The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari 

Maathai, best known for organizing a grassroots movement in which thousands of people were 

mobilized over the years to plant 30 million trees in Kenya and elsewhere and to protest forest 

clearance for luxury development. Imprisoned as an opponent of President Moi, Maathai linked 

deforestation with the plight of rural women, who are forced to spend untold hours in search of 

scarce firewood and water. 

Time Zone: Kenya lies in one time zone, which is three hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time 

Standard Time (GMT + 3). Kenya does not operate daylight saving time. 

SOCIETY 

Population: In 2007 Kenya’s population was estimated at 36,913,721, up from 28.7 million 

reported in the 1999 national census and from 15.3 million in the 1979 census. In 2006 the 

annual population growth rate was about 2.8 percent, a rate substantially below that of the early 

1980s, when Kenya’s growth reached 4 percent, the highest rate in the world. As of the end of 

2006, Kenya was host to some 220,000 refugees from neighboring countries, including 162,000 

from Somalia and most of the remainder from Sudan. Somewhat more than one-third of Kenya’s 

population lives in urban areas, with the greatest concentration in Nairobi. The non-city-dwelling 
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population is also heavily concentrated in areas of fertile land in the center and west of the 

country. The country’s population density is about 59 people per square kilometer, with 

extremely uneven distribution.

Demography: Kenya was the first sub-Saharan African country to adopt a national family 

planning program and one of a small handful to undergo a demographic transition to much lower 

fertility. Since the late 1970s, contraceptive prevalence has doubled, and the total fertility rate in 

Kenya has fallen from 8.0 children per woman to about half that number. Current estimates on 

fertility range from 3.1 to 5 births per woman. Kenya now has a birthrate that is among the 

lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, at between 28 and 39 per 1,000 population (2007 estimate). At the 

same time, according to various 2005 to 2007 estimates, life expectancy at birth has fallen to 

between 47 and 55 years. Current estimates place the death rate at between 11 and 16 deaths per 

1,000 population and infant mortality rate at 57 to 74 per 1,000 live births. The mortality rate 

among children under five was 120 per 1,000 births in 2004, up from 96 per 1,000 in 1970. The 

age structure of the population is very young, with 42 percent of the population under age 15 and 

only 2.6 percent 65 or older. The median age is 18.6 years. 

Ethnic Groups and Languages: People of African descent make up about 97 percent of the 

population; they are divided into about 40 ethnic groups belonging to three linguistic families: 

Bantu, Cushitic, and Nilotic. Bantu-speaking Kenyans comprise three groups: western (Luhya), 

highlands (including the Kikuyu and the Kamba), and coastal (Mijikenda) Bantu. The major 

groups of Nilotic speakers are the river–lake (Luo), highlands (Kalenjin), and plains or eastern 

(Masai). The Cushitic-speaking groups include the Oromo and Somali. The Kikuyu, who make 

up 22 percent of the population, constitute Kenya’s largest ethnic group. The next largest groups 

are the Luhya (14 percent), Luo (13 percent), Kalenjin (12 percent), and Kamba (11 percent). 

Additional groups include the Kisii (6 percent), Meru (6 percent), and other African (15 percent). 

Small numbers of people of Indian, Pakistani, and European descent live in the interior, and there 

are some Arabs along the coast. The official languages of Kenya are Swahili and English; many 

indigenous languages from the three language families also are spoken. 

Religion: About three-quarters of Kenyans profess some form of Christianity, although fewer 

are affiliated with a church. About 40 to 45 percent of Kenyans are Protestant, while 30 percent 

are Roman Catholic. Estimates for the percentage of the population that adheres to indigenous 

beliefs and to Islam vary widely, ranging from 10 to 25 percent for the former and 7 to 20 

percent for Muslims. One percent are Hindus and Sikhs. The population includes very few 

professed atheists. 

Education and Literacy: Estimates of the Kenyan literacy rate range between 75 and 85 

percent, with the female rate about 10 points lower than the male. The education system, beset 

by non-enrollment and low completion rates, offers eight years of compulsory primary 

education, beginning at age six, four years of secondary school, and four years of university 

education. The language of instruction from the secondary stage onward is English. Primary 

enrollment since 2002 has included about 75 percent of children. This enrollment rate remains 

below the nearly 100 percent rate in the 1980s prior to the introduction, under donor pressure, of 

user fees. The primary school completion rate in 2002 was less than one-half. Primary school 

enrollment has increased under the Kibaki government, which immediately fulfilled its campaign 

pledge to abolish user charges and special fees. The government now offers universal free 
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primary education, a change from earlier cost-sharing arrangements between the government and 

parents. Secondary school enrollment in 2002 included only about 23 percent of the relevant agegroup and remains low. Greater government expenditure on education⎯more than 8 percent of 

gross domestic product and 30 percent of current government spending in 2004⎯promises to 

reverse the declining trend in educational standards, as well as to increase the fiscal deficit. 

Kenya has five public universities and about twice that many private institutions of higher 

education. Since the 1980s, there has been a tremendous expansion in universities in response to 

high demand. The public universities are the University of Nairobi (founded in 1956); Kenyatta 

University (1972), in Nairobi; the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology 

(1981), near Nairobi; Egerton University (1939), near Nakuru; and Moi University (1984), 

outside Eldoret. The government also provides opportunities for higher education through 

several polytechnic institutes and several dozen teacher-training colleges. 

Health: Tropical diseases, especially malaria, and tuberculosis have long been a public health 

problem in Kenya. In recent years, infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 

which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), also has become a severe problem. 

Estimates of the incidence of infection differ widely. The United Nations Development 

Programme (UNDP) claimed in 2006 that more than 16 percent of adults in Kenya are HIVinfected, whereas the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) cites the much 

lower figure of 6.7 percent. Despite politically charged disputes over the numbers, however, the 

Kenyan government recently declared HIV/AIDS a national disaster. In 2004 the Kenyan 

Ministry of Health announced that HIV/AIDS had surpassed malaria and tuberculosis as the 

leading disease killer in the country. Thanks largely to AIDS, life expectancy in Kenya has 

dropped by about a decade. Since 1984 more than 1.5 million Kenyans have died because of 

HIV/AIDS. More than 3 million Kenyans are HIV positive. More than 70 people a day die of 

HIV-related illnesses. The prevalence rate for women is nearly twice that for men. The rate of 

orphanhood stands at about 11 percent. AIDS has contributed significantly to Kenya’s dismal 

ranking in the latest UNDP Human Development Report, whose Human Development Index 

(HDI) score is an amalgam of gross domestic product per head, figures for life expectancy, adult 

literacy, and school enrollment. The 2006 report ranked Kenya 152nd out of 177 countries on the 

HDI and pointed out that Kenya is one of the world’s worst performers in infant mortality. 

Estimates of the infant mortality rate range from 57 to 74 deaths/1,000 live births. The maternal 

mortality ratio is also among the highest in the world, thanks in part to female genital cutting, 

illegal since 2001 for girls under 16. 

Apart from major disease killers, Kenya has a serious problem with accidental death, specifically 

by motor vehicles. Kenya has the highest rate of road accidents in the world, with 510 fatal 

accidents per 100,000 vehicles (2004 estimate), as compared to second-ranked South Africa, 

with 260 fatalities, and the United Kingdom, with 20. In February 2004, in an attempt to improve 

Kenya’s appalling record, the government obliged the owners of the country’s 25,000 matutas

(minibuses), the backbone of public transportation, to install new safety equipment on their 

vehicles. Investment in road projects also is planned. 
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Kenya’s health infrastructure suffers from urban-rural and regional imbalances, lack of 

investment, and a personnel shortage, with, for example, one doctor for 10,150 people (as of 

2000). 

Welfare: Over the past several decades, Kenya has seen declining income per head and growing 

disparities of income and wealth. Various estimates between 2000 and 2006 stated that the top 

decile of the population enjoyed 37 to 42 percent of income, while the lowest decile had only 1 

to 2 percent. The number of people living below the poverty line (as defined in Kenya) is 

estimated to have increased from 11.3 million (48.4 percent of the population) in 1990 to 17.1 

million (55.4 percent of the population) in 2001. Despite high and growing levels of poverty, 

social protection is only now becoming a priority in Kenya. Hitherto, the country has not had 

social welfare or protection provisions that reach workers in both the formal and informal 

sectors. Plans are now underway to extend basic income replacement support measures and other 

protections to more workers. The Kenyan government is converting its existing 2.9 millionmember National Social Security Fund (NSSF), a provident fund for private-sector workers, into 

a more comprehensive national social insurance pension plan. Under a draft NSSF Act 

Amendment Bill, eligibility will extend to any person with a monthly or seasonal income. The 

new benefits will include lifetime old-age, invalid, and survivors’ pensions, a maternity grant, 

and a funeral grant. 

In addition, the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) is slated to be restructured to provide 

universal compulsory social health insurance coverage for every citizen. Legislation for a new 

system, the National Social Health Insurance Scheme, was passed in 2005 but was held up by 

President Kibaki, citing financial issues. If plans for the universal program proceed, the 

International Labour Organization will support the implementation process to be carried out 

jointly by the World Health Organization and the German Development Agency. In 2006, 

pending further action on the universal program, eligibility for the NHIF has been somewhat 

expanded.

ECONOMY 

Overview: Kenya has one of Africa’s worst performing economies, notwithstanding a pick-up of 

economic growth in the past three years. The economy is market-based, with some state-owned 

infrastructure enterprises, and maintains a liberalized external trade system. The economy’s 

heavy dependence on rain-fed agriculture and the tourism sector leaves it vulnerable to cycles of 

boom and bust. The agricultural sector employs nearly 75 percent of the country’s 37 million 

people. Half of the sector’s output remains subsistence production. 

Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate declined continuously from a peak of about 

6.5 percent per year during the first decade after independence to less than 4 percent per year in 

the following decade, to only about 1.5 percent per year during the 1990s. It has experienced an 

upturn to more than 5 percent per year since 2004. Several decades of declining economic 

performance, combined with rapid population growth, translated over time into reduced income 

per head, increased poverty, and worsening unemployment. Between the 1970s and 2000, the 

number of Kenyans classified as poor grew from 29 percent to about 57 percent. 
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Kenya’s economic performance has been hampered by numerous interacting factors: heavy 

dependence on a few agricultural exports that are vulnerable to world price fluctuations, 

population growth that has outstripped economic growth, prolonged drought that has necessitated 

power rationing, deteriorating infrastructure, and extreme disparities of wealth that have limited 

the opportunities of most to develop their skills and knowledge. Poor governance and corruption 

also have had a negative impact on growth, making it expensive to do business in Kenya. 

According to Transparency International, Kenya ranks among the world’s half-dozen most 

corrupt countries. Bribery and fraud cost Kenya as much as US$1 billion a year. Kenyans, 23 

percent living on less than US$1 per day, pay some 16 bribes a month—two in every three 

encounters with public officials. Another large drag on Kenya’s economy is the burden of human 

immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). 

Prospects brightened somewhat under the Kibaki government, whose policy aims include 

budgetary reforms and debt restraint. Despite early disillusionment with the government, the 

economy has seen a broad-based expansion, led by strong performance in tourism and 

telecommunications, and acceptable post-drought results in agriculture, especially the vital tea 

sector. Nevertheless, risks to continuing robust growth remain, including weak infrastructure, 

drought, political instability in the run-up to the December 2007 elections, and diminution of 

financial flows from donors because of ongoing corruption allegations. 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): In 2006 Kenya’s GDP was about US$17.39 billion. Per capita 

GDP averages somewhat more than US$450 annually. Adjusted in purchasing power parity 

(PPP) terms, per capita GDP in 2006 was about US$1,200. The country’s real GDP growth 

picked up to 2.3 percent in early 2004 and to nearly 6 percent in 2005 and 2006, compared with a 

sluggish 1.4 percent in 2003 and throughout President Moi’s last term (1997–2002). Real GDP is 

expected to continue to improve, largely because of expansions in tourism, telecommunications, 

transport, and construction and a recovery in agriculture. The Kenya Central Bank forecast for 

2007 is between 5 and 6 percent GDP growth. GDP composition by sector, according to 2004 

estimates, was as follows: agriculture, 25.7 percent; manufacturing, 14.0 percent; trade, 

restaurants, and hotels, 13.8 percent; transport and communications, 6.9 percent; government 

services, 15.6 percent; and other, 24.0 percent. 

Government Budget: The budgets of the Moi era (1978–2002) carried increasingly worrisome 

deficits, and the Kibaki government’s first budget for fiscal year (FY) 2004 was similarly 

unbalanced. In 2006 Kenya’s revenues totaled US$4.448 billion, while its estimated expenditures 

totaled US$5.377 billion. Government budget balance as a percentage of gross domestic 

product⎯a low –5.5 percent in 2004⎯had improved to –2.1 percent in 2006. 

Inflation: In 2006 the inflation rate for consumer prices was estimated at 14.5 percent. This rate 

was a significant rise from the previous year’s 10.3 percent, reflecting higher food prices, which 

carry a 50 percent weighting in the consumer price index. 

Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing: The agricultural sector continues to dominate Kenya’s 

economy, although only 15 percent of Kenya’s total land area has sufficient fertility and rainfall 

to be farmed, and only 7 or 8 percent can be classified as first-class land. In 2006 almost 75 

percent of working Kenyans made their living on the land, compared with 80 percent in 1980. 
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About one-half of total agricultural output is non-marketed subsistence production. Agriculture is 

also the largest contributor to Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP). In 2005 agriculture, 

including forestry and fishing, accounted for about 24 percent of GDP, as well as for 18 percent 

of wage employment and 50 percent of revenue from exports. The principal cash crops are tea, 

horticultural produce, and coffee; horticultural produce and tea are the main growth sectors and 

the two most valuable of all of Kenya’s exports. In 2005 horticulture accounted for 23 percent 

and tea for 22 percent of total export earnings. Coffee has declined in importance with depressed 

world prices, accounting for just 5 percent of export receipts in 2005. The production of major 

food staples such as corn is subject to sharp weather-related fluctuations. Production downturns 

periodically necessitate food aid—for example, in 2004 aid for 1.8 million people⎯because of 

one of Kenya’s intermittent droughts. 

Tea, coffee, sisal, pyrethrum, corn, and wheat are grown in the fertile highlands, one of the most 

successful agricultural production regions in Africa. Production is mainly on small Africanowned farms formed from the division of formerly European-owned estates. Livestock 

predominates in the semi-arid savanna to the north and east. Coconuts, pineapples, cashew nuts, 

cotton, sugarcane, sisal, and corn are grown in the lower-lying areas. 

Forestry and Fishing: Resource degradation has reduced output from forestry. In 2004 

roundwood removals came to 22,162,000 cubic meters. Fisheries are of local importance around 

Lake Victoria and have potential on Lake Turkana. Kenya’s total catch reported in 2004 was 

128,000 metric tons. However, output from fishing has been declining because of ecological 

disruption. Pollution, overfishing, and the use of unauthorized fishing equipment have led to 

falling catches and have endangered local fish species. 

Mining and Minerals: Kenya has no significant mineral endowment. The mining and quarrying 

sector makes a negligible contribution to the economy, accounting for less than 1 percent of 

gross domestic product, the majority contributed by the soda ash operation at Lake Magadi in 

south-central Kenya. Thanks largely to rising soda ash output, Kenya’s mineral production in 

2005 reached more than 1 million tons. One of Kenya’s largest foreign-investment projects in 

recent years is the planned expansion of Magadi Soda. Apart from soda ash, the chief minerals 

produced are limestone, gold, salt, and fluorspar. 

All unextracted minerals are government property, according to the Mining Act. The Department 

of Mines and Geology, under the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, controls 

exploration and exploitation of such minerals. 

Industry and Manufacturing: Although Kenya is the most industrially developed country in 

East Africa, manufacturing still accounts for only 14 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). 

This level of manufacturing GDP represents only a slight increase since independence. 

Expansion of the sector after independence, initially rapid, has stagnated since the 1980s, 

hampered by shortages in hydroelectric power, high energy costs, dilapidated transport 

infrastructure, endemic corruption, and the dumping of cheap imports. Industrial activity, 

concentrated around the three largest urban centers, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu, is 

dominated by food-processing industries such as grain milling, beer production, and sugarcane 

crushing, and the fabrication of consumer goods, e.g., vehicles from kits. Kenya also has an oil 
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12

refinery that processes imported crude petroleum into petroleum products, mainly for the 

domestic market. In addition, a substantial and expanding informal sector engages in small-scale 

manufacturing of household goods, motor-vehicle parts, and farm implements. About half of the 

investment in the industrial sector is foreign, with the United Kingdom providing half. The 

United States is the second largest investor. 

Kenya’s inclusion among the beneficiaries of the U.S. Government’s African Growth and 

Opportunity Act (AGOA) has given a boost to manufacturing in recent years. Since AGOA took 

effect in 2000, Kenya’s clothing sales to the United States increased from US$44 million to 

US$270 million (2006). Other initiatives to strengthen manufacturing have been the new 

government’s favorable tax measures, including the removal of duty on capital equipment and 

other raw materials. 

Energy: The largest share of Kenya’s electricity supply comes from hydroelectric stations at 

dams along the upper Tana River, as well as the Turkwel Gorge Dam in the west. A petroleumfired plant on the coast, geothermal facilities at Olkaria (near Nairobi), and electricity imported 

from Uganda make up the rest of the supply. Kenya’s installed capacity stood at 1,142 

megawatts a year between 2001 and 2003. The state-owned Kenya Electricity Generating 

Company (KenGen), established in 1997 under the name of Kenya Power Company, handles the 

generation of electricity, while the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), which is slated 

for privatization, handles transmission and distribution. Shortfalls of electricity occur 

periodically, when drought reduces water flow. In 1997 and 2000, for example, drought 

prompted severe power rationing, with economically damaging 12-hour blackouts. Frequent 

outages, as well as high cost, remain serious obstacles to economic activity. Tax and other 

concessions are planned to encourage investment in hydroelectricity and in geothermal energy, 

in which Kenya is a pioneer. The government plans to open two new power stations in 2008, 

Sondu Miriu (hydroelectric) and Olkaria IV (geothermal), but power demand growth is strong, 

and demand is still expected to outpace supply during periods of drought. 

Kenya has yet to find hydrocarbon reserves on its territory, despite several decades of 

intermittent exploration. Although Australia continues the search off Kenya’s shore, Kenya 

currently imports all crude petroleum requirements. Petroleum accounts for 20 to 25 percent of 

the national import bill. Kenya Petroleum Refineries—a 50:50 joint venture between the 

government and several oil majors—operates the country’s sole oil refinery in Mombasa, which 

currently meets 60 percent of local demand for petroleum products. In 2004 oil consumption was 

estimated at 55,000 barrels a day. Most of the Mombasa refinery’s production is transported via 

Kenya’s Mombasa–Nairobi pipeline. 

Services: Kenya’s services sector, which contributes about 63 percent of GDP, is dominated by 

tourism. The tourism sector has exhibited steady growth in most years since independence and 

by the late 1980s had become the country’s principal source of foreign exchange. In the late 

1990s, tourism relinquished this position to tea exports, because of a terrorism-related downturn. 

The downturn followed the 1998 bombing of the U.S Embassy in Nairobi and later negative 

travel advisories from Western governments. Tourists, the largest number from Germany and the 

United Kingdom, are attracted mainly to the coastal beaches and the game parks, notably, the 

expansive Tsavo National Park (20,808 square kilometers) in the southeast. The government and 
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tourist industry organizations have taken steps to address the security problem and to reverse 

negative publicity. Such steps include establishing a tourist police and launching marketing 

campaigns in key tourist origin markets. Tourism has seen a substantial revival over the past 

several years and is the major contributor to the pick-up in the country’s economic growth. 

Tourism is now Kenya's largest foreign exchange earning sector, followed by flowers, tea, and 

coffee. In 2006 tourism generated US$803 million, up from US$699 million the previous year. 

Other elements of Kenya’s services sector face challenges of downsizing, in particular, the 

financial system. The Kenya banking system is supervised by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). 

As of late July 2004, the system consisted of 43 commercial banks (down from 48 in 2001), 

several non-bank financial institutions, including mortgage companies, four savings and loan 

associations, and several score foreign-exchange bureaus. Two of the four largest banks, the 

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and the National Bank of Kenya (NBK), are partially 

government-owned, and the other two are majority foreign-owned (Barclays Bank and Standard 

Chartered). Most of the many smaller banks are family-owned and -operated. 

Labor: In the early 2000s, agriculture remains the population’s main occupation and source of 

income. In 2006 Kenya’s labor force was estimated to include about 12 million workers, almost 

75 percent in agriculture. The number employed outside small-scale agriculture and pastoralism 

was about 6 million. In 2004 about 15 percent of the labor force was officially classified as 

unemployed. Other estimates place Kenya’s unemployment much higher, even up to 40 percent. 

Foreign Economic Relations: Since independence, Kenya, a nonaligned but pro-Western 

country, has seen both substantial foreign investment and significant amounts of development 

aid, some from the communist bloc, most from the West. Between 60 and 70 percent of industry 

is still owned from abroad. Development assistance has come from increasingly diverse sources 

in recent years. The share provided by the United Kingdom has fallen, while that of multilateral 

agencies, particularly the World Bank and the European Development Fund, has increased. 

When President Moi left office in December 2002, one of the major concerns of international 

donors was removed, and they prepared to step up aid. The International Monetary Fund 

resumed aid after a three-year gap, and others followed suit with pledges of US$4.1 billion from 

2004 to 2006 for development and budgetary support. By February 2005, however, relations with 

donors were again deteriorating, and some promised aid was suspended because of disappointing 

progress in tackling corruption and in instituting economic reforms, including privatization. 

Aside from ties with advanced economies and donors, Kenya is active within regional trade 

blocs such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East 

African Community (EAC), a partnership of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The EAC, dissolved 

in 1977 because of political tensions, was revived in 1997. The ultimate aim of the EAC is to 

create a common market of the three states modeled on the European Union. Among the early 

steps toward integration is the customs union of 2004, which eventually will eliminate duties on 

goods and non-tariff trade barriers among the members. The question of how the EAC will relate 

to other regional trade blocs, including COMESA and the Southern African Development 

Community (SADC), is in flux. 
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Imports and Exports: Kenya’s chief exports are horticultural products and tea. In 2005 the 

combined value of these commodities was US$1,150 million, about 10 times the value of 

Kenya’s third most valuable export, coffee. Kenya’s other significant exports are petroleum 

products, sold to near neighbors, fish, cement, pyrethrum, and sisal. The leading imports are 

crude petroleum, chemicals, manufactured goods, machinery, and transportation equipment. 

Africa is Kenya's largest export market, followed by the European Union. The major destinations 

for exports are the United Kingdom (UK), Tanzania, Uganda, and the Netherlands. Major 

suppliers are the UK, United Arab Emirates, Japan, and India. Kenya’s main exports to the 

United States are garments traded under the terms of the African Growth and Opportunity Act 

(AGOA). Despite AGOA, Kenya’s apparel industry is struggling to hold its ground against 

Asian competition and runs a trade deficit with the United States. 

Trade Balance: Kenya typically has a substantial trade deficit. The trade balance fluctuates 

widely because Kenya’s main exports are primary commodities subject to the effects of both 

world prices and weather. In 2005 Kenya’s income from exports was about US$3.2 billion. The 

payment for imports was about US$5.7 billion, yielding a trade deficit of about US$2.5 billion. 

Balance of Payments: In 2006 Kenya had a current account deficit of US$1.5 billion. This 

figure was a significant increase over 2005, when the current account had a deficit of US$495 

million. In 2006 the current account balance as a percentage of gross domestic product was –4.2. 

External Debt: In 2006 Kenya’s external debt totaled US$6.7 billion. The debt is forecast to be 

a manageable 30 percent of gross domestic product in 2007. 

Foreign Investment: Kenyan policies on foreign investment generally have been favorable 

since independence, with occasional tightening of restrictions to promote the “Africanization” of 

enterprises. Foreign investors have been guaranteed ownership and the right to remit dividends, 

royalties, and capital. In the 1970s, the government disallowed foreign investment unless there 

was also some government participation in the ownership of an enterprise. Notwithstanding 

some restrictions, between 60 and 70 percent of industry is still owned from abroad. The most 

active investors have been the British. 

Currency and Exchange Rate: The value of the Kenya shilling (KSh), Kenya’s unit of 

currency, declined during President Moi’s last term (1997–2002) from about KSh60 per US$1 in 

1998 to KSh78.75 per US$1 in 2002. The exchange rate of the Kenya shilling between 2003 and 

2005 averaged about KSh76 to US$1. As of June 1, 2007, the rate was KSh67=US$1. 

Fiscal Year: Kenya’s fiscal year runs from July 1 though June 30. 

TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Overview: Road, rail, and air transport are all significant in Kenya, while water transport plays a 

minor role. All of Kenya’s transportation sectors, but particularly road and rail, are in need of 

stepped-up investment for better maintenance and expansion. 
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Roads: Kenya has an extensive 64,000-kilometer road network, about 8,000 kilometers of which 

are paved. The roads, which carry more than 80 percent of passenger and freight traffic, offer 

increasing coverage of all parts of the country. However, serious under-investment and 

corruption in contracts have left the road network in a poor state of repair. This poor condition 

contributes to an appalling rate of road accidents and deaths, the highest in the world. Road 

safety is further reduced by the operation of 25,000 matutas (minibuses), which constitute about 

78 percent of the country’s public transport system. Aiming to cut carnage on the roads, the 

Kibaki government in February 2004 obliged matuta owners to install safety equipment, a 

measure that led to sharp fare increases and overcrowded trains. The government and donor 

countries have prioritized the rehabilitation of the road infrastructure as a key part of the 

country’s development strategy. In April 2004, the World Bank approved funding of US$207 

million to support the Northern Corridor Transport Improvement (NCTI) project, 80 percent of 

which will be spent on roads. Other funds will come from private capital offset by toll charges, 

as well as donations from the European Union and the United States. 

Railroads: Kenya’s railroad system has about 2,778 kilometers of narrow-gauge, one-meter 

track, 150 stations, and a fleet of 156 locomotives and some 7,000 coaches and wagons, 

including container-carrying Railtrainers. The system, managed by the Kenya Railway 

Corporation (KRC), serves both Kenya and land-locked countries in the East African region. The 

most important route runs from Mombasa through Nairobi to the Ugandan border. Kenya also 

has commuter rail that serves the Nairobi suburbs. In 2004 Kenya and Uganda approved a 

merger of their railroad corporations and jointly offered the merged railroad for concession to 

private operators/investors. In 2006 the winning concessionaire was Rift Valley Railways 

(RVR), a consortium led by South Africa’s Sheltam Rail Company. RVR acquired rights to 

1,920 kilometers of track in Kenya, which carried an average of 2.3 million tons of freight and 

4.7 million passengers per year between fiscal year (FY) 2000 and FY 2003. 

Ports: Kenya’s port traffic climbed to 14.4 million metric tons of freight in 2006. The principal 

seaport, Mombasa, is the main sea outlet for both inland Kenya and the land-locked countries of 

East and Central Africa, e.g., Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the eastern Democratic Republic of the 

Congo, and southern Sudan. The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), created in 1978, manages port 

operations at Mombasa, as well as inland container depots in Nairobi, Eldoret, and Kisumu. The 

KPA also has jurisdiction over the small ports of Lamu, Kiunga, Kilifi, Malindi, Funzi, Mtwapa, 

Shimoni, and Vanga. Mombasa is a deep-water port with 21 berths that can handle all sizes of 

ships and 300,000 containers per year. Freight handled through Mombasa jumped by 12.6 

percent in 2003, but inefficiencies, corruption, and deteriorating infrastructure at the port 

continue to be cited as a major deterrent to business in Kenya. There are plans to refurbish some 

of the port’s equipment. 

Inland Waterways: Water transport is the least used mode of transportation in Kenya, limited to 

the coastal and lake regions. The only significant inland waterway is the part of Lake Victoria 

within the boundaries of Kenya. The Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) operates ferry services 

there to link Ugandan and Tanzanian locations with Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest town and a 

once bustling port. The ferry supplements interstate rail and road traffic. In addition to the ferry, 

the KRC has two freight tugs, nine lighter barges, and three passenger vessels on Lake Victoria. 
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Civil Aviation and Airports: Kenya has more than 200 airports and airfields, 15 of which have 

paved runways, including four with runways longer than 3,000 meters. About 35 airfields can be 

considered commercial. Three airports handle international flights, Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta 

International Airport (JKIA), Mombasa’s Moi International Airport (MIA), and Eldoret 

International Airport. Other facilities include Wilson Airport in Nairobi; airports at Malindi, 

Kakuma, and Kisumu; and numerous airstrips throughout the country. The Northern Corridor 

Transport Improvement (NCTI) project approved in mid-2004 includes US$41 million for 

aviation. The funds are earmarked to enhance facilities and safety at JKIA and MIA, including 

perimeter fencing and new navigation, security, and baggage-handling equipment. The runway 

extension at JKIA will raise capacity from 2.5 to 5.5 million passengers per year. A key 

objective of the airport upgrade is to win “category one” status from the U.S. Federal Aviation 

Administration to allow for direct flights between JKIA and U.S. airports. Direct flights would 

boost tourism and trade and secure JKIA’s status as a regional hub. 

Pipelines: The Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), a state-owned enterprise (parastatal) formed in 

1973, transports about 90 percent of the petroleum products consumed in Kenya’s domestic 

market. The KPC owns and operates the Mombasa–Nairobi pipeline, whose throughput has risen 

because of restrictions imposed on the road transport of petroleum to stem the diversion of 

supplies to local markets. A second pipeline stretches from Eldoret to Kisumu in the west of the 

country, and a recent project is to extend the pipeline from Eldoret to Kampala in Uganda, under 

the auspices of the East African Community. The KPC is the dominant player in the regional 

energy sector, exporting to Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo, and Sudan. 

Telecommunications: This sector, a key to sustained economic development in Kenya, 

experienced rapid growth in 2000–2006 because of the proliferation of mobile cellular 

telephones. The number of cell phone subscribers increased from 24,000 in 1999 to 5 million in 

2005. In 2005 Kenya’s telephone landlines numbered 282,000, compared with 106,000 in 1984. 

The landline system has been generally unreliable, having seen little modernization except for 

service to businesses. The burgeoning cellular phone system is operated by two license holders, 

Safaricom and Celtel, to be joined eventually by a third, Econet Wireless Kenya. Internet use 

also has expanded rapidly, reaching 1 million by 2005. The country had six television broadcast 

stations in 2007 and more than three dozen radio stations. Kenya is estimated to have 22 

televisions per 1,000 people. 

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 

Political System Overview: Kenya is a republic dominated by a strong presidency. The political 

system is in flux as contentious debate continues on efforts to adopt a new constitution. A 

popular referendum in 2005 defeated a proposed constitution supported by the government. The 

constitution to be replaced was drawn up at independence. This constitution, heavily indebted to 

English law, has already been amended more than 30 times but is widely agreed to require a 

major overhaul. The constitution gives the president wide-ranging powers, provides for no prime 

minister, and is ill-suited to multiparty politics, despite the 1991 repeal of a section that had 

formalized the one-party state. Key proposals in the recently defeated draft constitution called for 
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reducing the powers vested in the office of the president, providing for a prime minister, and 

ensuring the independence of the judiciary. 

Besides the constitution, a pressing concern in Kenyan politics is corruption. Recent 

anticorruption efforts have led to the establishment of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission 

(KACC) and to laws requiring civil servants to disclose assets and mandating transparency in 

procurement. The government also promised to trace ill-gotten assets and has set up 

commissions to unravel the decades-old illegal allocation of public lands and a major corruption 

scandal from the 1990s, the Goldenberg Affair. Despite such anticorruption activity, Kenya’s 

anticorruption campaign, in the perception of most Kenyans surveyed, has stagnated. 

Executive Branch: Under Kenya’s current constitution, the president is both the chief of state 

and head of government. The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term, with the 

possibility of re-election to a second term. The presidential candidate must receive the largest 

number of votes in absolute terms and also, in order to avoid a runoff, must win 25 percent or 

more of the vote in at least five of Kenya’s seven provinces and the Nairobi area. The president 

appoints the vice president and members of the cabinet, who must be members of the National 

Assembly. The president also exercises direct control over the key areas of security and defense 

and has extensive powers over the appointment of the attorney general, the chief justice of the 

Court of Appeal, and Court of Appeal and High Court judges. 

Legislative Branch: Kenya’s National Assembly, or Bunge, is a unicameral legislature with 224 

members, 210 of whom are elected by popular vote for five-year terms. The president appoints 

12 “nominated” members, who are selected by the parties in proportion to the votes the parties 

receive in parliamentary elections. Two members serve ex-officio. 

Judicial Branch: Kenya’s court hierarchy consists of the Court of Appeal, High Court, resident 

and district magistrates’ courts, and kadhis courts, which adjudicate Muslim personal law 

concerning personal status, marriage, divorce, and inheritance among Muslims. Kenya’s 

president appoints judges, including the chief justice, who presides in the Court of Appeal. The 

High Court is responsible for judicial review. Kenya accepts compulsory International Court of 

Justice jurisdiction, with reservations. The judiciary is constitutionally independent, and judges 

have security of tenure. This constitutional status and the theoretical life tenure of judges have 

not, however, ensured immunity from executive-branch pressure. 

Administrative Divisions: Kenya is divided into seven provinces and the Nairobi Area. The 

provinces are Central, Coast, Eastern, North-Eastern, Nyanza, Rift Valley, and Western. Lowerlevel administrative units include 40 districts and further subdivisions. 

Provincial and Local Government: The seven provinces and the Nairobi Area are administered 

by provincial commissioners who are answerable to the president. Elective municipal, town, and 

county councils have limited powers delegated by the national government. Important council 

officials such as the town clerk and treasurer all are appointed by the central government in 

Nairobi. 
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Judicial and Legal System: Kenya’s legal system is based on Kenyan statutory law, Kenyan 

and English common law, tribal law, and Islamic law. Bias and corruption in the court system 

frequently compromise the right to a fair trial. In 2003, following the resignation of the chief 

justice, the anticorruption authority found credible evidence of corruption against five of nine 

Court of Appeal judges and proof of misconduct against 18 of 36 High Court judges and 82 of 

254 magistrates. In October 2003, one-half of Kenya’s senior judges were suspended over 

allegations of corruption, and tribunals were established to investigate the charges against them. 

Many of the judges resigned rather than face tribunals. 

Electoral System: Suffrage in Kenya is universal at age 18. National presidential and 

parliamentary elections are held every five years. Election is by a plurality of votes. The most 

recent elections for president and for parliament were held in December 2002 and will next be 

held in late 2007. 

Politics and Political Parties: Multiparty politics reemerged in Kenya after December 1991, 

with the repeal of Section 2a of the constitution. In 1982 Section 2a had officially made Kenya a 

one-party state, with the Kenya African National Union (KANU) the sole legal party. Kenya had 

been a de facto one-party state since 1969. As of that date, all political candidates had to be 

members of KANU. The reemergence of a multiparty system in the 1990s initially produced a 

fractured opposition to President Moi and KANU. After 1991 an important new opposition party, 

the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), soon split into factions, and numerous 

other parties emerged. After two national elections in which Moi won against divided opposition, 

various opposition elements formed the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), a coalition of a 

dozen parties, including the National Alliance of Kenya (NAK) and the Liberal Democratic Party 

(LDP). NARC ran Mwai Kibaki as its candidate for president in 2002 and won a solid victory to 

become the governing party. Several years after the election, NARC broke up over 

disagreements about the draft constitution. Some constituent elements of NARC joined KANU 

to form a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement, while other elements 

became part of a new pro-Kibaki group, NARC–Kenya. 

Mass Media: Kenya’s state-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation remains the only 

broadcaster with countrywide coverage. A dozen private radio and television stations have 

ranges that are limited to the Nairobi area. A number of recently established private radio 

stations broadcast in local languages, including Kameme FM (Kikuyu), Metro East FM (Hindi), 

and Rehema Radio (Kalenjin). More than 100 applications for radio and television licenses are 

pending before the government-controlled Communication Commission of Kenya. Kenya’s print 

media are diverse, ranging from well-respected newspapers and magazines to an expansive 

tabloid press. Two independent national newspapers, the Daily Nation and The Standard, feature 

quality reporting, as does the weekly, The East African, which is published in Nairobi, as well as 

in Dar es Salaam and Kampala. 

Under the Kibaki government, the media have demonstrated greater editorial independence than 

in previous years, and the number of press freedom abuses has declined. Still, some media 

policies and incidents continue to inhibit press freedom, e.g., the need to post a costly bond prior 

to publication and to register afterward. In 2003 the government invoked a restrictive 

constitutional provision on court coverage to intimidate journalists reporting on a possible 
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political murder. In March 2006, hooded policemen raided the offices of The Standard

newspaper and Kenya Television Network, claiming concerns about internal security. 

Foreign Relations: Under Jomo Kenyatta (1963–78), one of the more pro-British of African 

leaders, Kenya was officially nonaligned but set a pattern of friendly relations with the West. 

The United Kingdom (UK), the former colonial power, provided assistance to smooth Kenya’s 

transition to black majority rule by compensating white settlers. Kenya permitted the UK to use 

its hinterlands for military training. An important foreign relations development under President 

Moi was Kenya’s support of U.S. military commitments in the Indian Ocean. This support has 

gained renewed importance since the Horn of Africa became a front line in the fight against 

terrorism. The ongoing threat of terrorist attacks by Islamists in the area stands to cement the 

country’s close ties with the United States. 

In addition to its ties with Western powers, Kenya is a major player regionally, taking an active 

role in the affairs of its neighbors. At various times, Kenya has had conflicts with each of the five 

neighbors over, for example, boundaries, border incursions, harboring rebels, interfering with 

cross-border traffic flow, and the use of Nile waters. Diplomatic and mediation efforts, often 

spearheaded by Kenya, typically have eased the conflicts. Most recently, for instance, Kenya 

helped in peace talks that aimed to end the civil war in southern Sudan, along with the war’s 

spillover effects in Kenya. The most intractable problems at present are with unstable Somalia, 

which claims a restive Somali-populated part of Kenya and is a source of outlaws, refugees, 

hostile craft, and, possibly, terrorists. Concerned about Islamist strength in Somalia, Kenya lent 

indirect support to the military campaign waged in Somalia in December 2006 by Ethiopia and 

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government against the Union of Islamic Courts militia. In 

January 2007, Kenya closed its border with Somalia in order to exclude the routed Islamists. 

More positive relations between Kenya and its neighbors, namely, Uganda and Tanzania, are 

currently developing through the relaunch of the tripartite trade bloc, the East African 

Community (EAC), as well as the broader organization, the Common Market for Eastern and 

Southern Africa (COMESA). 

Membership in International Organizations: Kenya is a member of numerous international 

organizations whose focus is primarily Africa, including the Africa Development Bank (AfDB); 

African Union (AU); Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); Cotonou 

Convention; East African Community (EAC); Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR–ARC); and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Some of 

Kenya’s other major memberships, which have a broader international focus, include the Food 

and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); Group of 15; Group of 77; 

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); International Bank for Reconstruction and 

Development (IBRD); International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); International Criminal 

Police Organization (Interpol); International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); 

International Labour Organization (ILO); International Maritime Organization (IMO); 

International Monetary Fund (IMF); International Organization for Migration (IOM); 

International Telecommunication Union (ITU); Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical 

Weapons (OPCW); United Nations (UN); United Nations Committee on Trade and Development 

(UNCTAD); United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); 

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); United Nations 
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Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO); Universal Postal Union (UPU); World Health 

Organization (WHO); World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); World Meteorological 

Organization (WMO); and World Trade Organization (WTO). 

Major International Treaties: Kenya has acceded to major international treaties, accords, and 

conventions in many areas, for example, human rights, the environment, and nonproliferation. 

The environmental agreements include some 16 global and regional accords on the atmosphere, 

hazardous substances, marine resources, and living resources of the sea, freshwater, and land. 

Kenya has signed major conventions regarding nuclear safety and biological, chemical, and 

nuclear weapons, as well as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, 

Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. Kenya is a signatory 

to most of the major international human rights treaties, for example: Economic, Social and 

Cultural Rights in 1972; Civil and Political Rights in 1972; Discrimination Against Women in 

1984; Torture in 1997; and Rights of the Child in 1990. 

NATIONAL SECURITY 

Armed Forces Overview: In mid-2006, regular armed forces totaled 24,120 active personnel, 

including headquarters staff. The army numbered 20,000; the navy, 1,620 (including 120 

marines); and the air force, 2,500. Kenya’s military participates regularly in international 

operations and exercises. Kenya also has a paramilitary internal security force, the 5,000-strong 

General Service Unit (GSU), which is part of the police. Among police units, the GSU is the 

most notorious for human rights abuses. The rest of the police has a reputation for graft. 

Foreign Military Relations: Kenya long has had informal military alliances with the United 

States and the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1980 Kenya has supported U.S. military 

commitments in the Indian Ocean by permitting the use of Mombasa port and air base facilities 

in exchange for U.S. military assistance. The U.S. Central Command⎯which covers the Middle 

East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa⎯has not sought permanent basing rights in Kenya 

because of the availability of Djibouti. However, Kenya is a valuable point of entry and staging 

platform, for example, for U.S., British, and German aerial and naval search operations targeting 

al-Qaeda–linked Somalia-based groups. U.S. and British forces also use Kenyan territory for 

training, the UK since before Kenyan independence. The UK conducts three to four military 

exercises per year in remote areas, often with Kenyan participation. In recent years, the United 

States has provided joint peace support training through its Africa Crisis Response Initiative 

(ACRI) program, as well as conventional military training under the Africa Contingency 

Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) program. A major amphibious joint exercise, “Edged 

Mallet,” is held regularly along the northern Kenyan coast and has involved up to 3,000 U.S. 

Marines. In 2004 the joint exercise had regional terrorism as the primary focus. 

Currently, Kenyan and U.S. officials are discussing a new U.S. military command, Africa 

Command (AFRICOM), which will oversee U.S. military operations in Africa. Announced in 

2007, AFRICOM will be carved out of the three combatant commands responsible for the 

continent: European Command, Central Command, and Pacific Command. AFRICOM will stand 

up initially in Germany at European Command headquarters and become fully established in late 
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21

2008 somewhere in Africa. Kenya is among the 10 countries being considered for AFRICOM’s 

main base. 

External Threat: Kenya has security concerns regarding several near neighbors, chiefly, 

Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda. Somalia poses a threat in the disputed and lawless semi-desert 

northeastern region of Kenya, where there is a large Somali ethnic population. In the early 1990s, 

this population was augmented by a large Somali refugee influx fleeing political breakdown in 

Somalia. The Somali frontier is porous to illegal weapons traffic and other contraband and to 

livestock raiders and bandits, as well as to potential terrorists. In response to the crisis in Somalia 

in 2006, Kenya deployed its forces along its border with Somalia and at sea to apprehend 

extremist Somali fighters fleeing the Ethiopian advance and to prevent them from establishing 

safe haven in Kenya. 

Sudan and Kenya have had a strained security relationship since the late 1980s. The Sudanese 

government accused Kenya of aiding the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Sudan 

also worries that Kenya could allow the United States to use it as a platform for actions against 

terrorists in Sudan. Further strains stem from Khartoum’s claim to the “Elemi Triangle”⎯a 

potentially oil-rich arid area on the Kenyan side of the border. Despite the tensions, Kenya has 

played a leading role as a mediator in Sudan’s civil war. Bilateral relations between Uganda and 

Kenya periodically also have been strained, with mutual concerns about cross-border incursions 

and arms provision to dissidents, as well as fears about Kenyan interference with transport and 

Ugandan cutoff of electricity supplies. 

Defense Budget: Kenya’s military expenditures for 2005 totaled US$280.5 million, which 

represented 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), an increase from 1999, when 

expenditures constituted 1.9 percent of GDP. 

Major Military Units: As of 2006, Kenya’s military had five brigades: two infantry, one with 

three battalions and one with two battalions; one armored, with three battalions; one artillery, 

with two battalions; and one engineer, with two battalions. In addition, the army includes the 

following four battalions: air defense artillery, airborne, independent infantry, and independent 

air cavalry. 

Major Military Equipment: As of 2006, the army had 78 main battle tanks, 92 reconnaissance 

vehicles, 62 armored personnel carriers, 48 pieces of towed artillery, 62 mortars, 54 antitank 

guided weapons, 80 recoilless launchers, and 94 air defense guns. The navy had four offshore 

patrol craft, two amphibious craft, and one support craft. The air force had 9 combat aircraft, 34 

attack helicopters (of doubtful serviceability), 30 transport aircraft, 17 transport helicopters, 25 

training aircraft, and various missiles. 

Military Service: Recruitment into the armed forces is on a voluntary basis. The minimum 

recruitment age is 18. The recruit must be a Kenyan citizen and have a national identity card, 

which may be issued only when the applicant is 18 and is able to produce a birth certificate. In 

2005 persons in the eligible age-group of 18 to 49 numbered 7,303,000 males and 7,084,000 

females. 
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Paramilitary Forces: In addition to the regular armed forces and the regular national police, the 

government can call on a special security force, the 5,000-strong General Service Unit (GSU). 

Part of the police but semi-autonomous, the GSU acts as the uniformed paramilitary cousin of 

the security and intelligence units. The GSU handles violent crime, outbreaks of communal 

violence, and demonstrations. Since 2003, the GSU also has had certain counterterrorism 

functions, including patrolling around Kenya’s international airports. The GSU has 12 boats, an 

air wing of seven light, fixed-wing aircraft and three helicopters, and eight armored cars. In 

carrying out its functions, the GSU is especially notorious among police units for human rights 

violations, including extrajudicial killings and torture. 

Military Forces Abroad: Since 1989, Kenya has participated in more than 20 United Nations 

peacekeeping operations worldwide, contributing military observers, staff officers, police 

monitors, and infantry troops. Kenya is the third largest African contributor of troops to such 

operations, after Nigeria and Ghana. Kenyan forces have deployed for missions in numerous 

African countries, in the Balkans, and in East Timor. Currently, Kenya contributes forces to the 

African Union’s peacekeeping operations in Darfur, Sudan. Kenya also contributed personnel to 

the U.S.-led coalition forces operating in Afghanistan after October 7, 2001. 

Police: Kenya Police, a national civilian force about 30,000 strong, is divided into a number of 

separate operational units, including an air wing, port police for the Indian Ocean and Lake 

Victoria, and a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) intelligence division, which 

investigates criminal activity. An Anti-Corruption Unit, created in August 2001, reports to the 

CID director. Another element of Kenya’s large internal security apparatus is the National 

Security Intelligence Service (NSIS), the primary civilian intelligence organization. The NSIS 

was established in 1998 from the Police Special Branch (Security Intelligence Service) to 

monitor people considered subversive. The NSIS’s formation was spurred by the August 1998 

U.S. embassy bombing. In the aftermath of the bombing investigation, U.S. Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (FBI) agents and other consultants stayed on to help train the NSIS in urban 

counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategy. With the victory of Mwai Kibaki in the 

presidential election in December 2002, further steps were taken to professionalize the NSIS, 

including the initiation in 2003 of a graduate training program. A Tourism Police Unit, with an 

initial contingent of 450 officers, also was established in mid-2003, with the charge of reducing 

concerns about the threat to foreign tourists from terrorism, especially in Coast Province. The 

various new police units augment the internal security capabilities that were long the province of 

the paramilitary General Service Unit. 

Internal Threat: A relatively stable country, Kenya’s political status quo is not under significant 

threat either from its own security forces or from rebel political movements. Kenya’s nearest 

brush with a military coup occurred in 1982 in a brief failed action by air force officers. No local 

insurgencies of consequence currently exist. Kenya’s chief sources of internal unrest are ethnic 

tensions. Such tensions and flare-ups of interethnic violence frequently arise from competition 

for productive areas. Serious interethnic disturbances erupted in the Rift Valley after the 

elections of 1992 and 1998. The 1998 clashes may have displaced 300,000 people. 

Another key security concern in Kenya is the escalating level of crime, both urban and rural. 

Urban areas, especially the capital, nicknamed “Nairobbery,” are plagued by burglary, armed 

robbery, and vehicle hijackings. Police complicity in illegal activity is much in evidence. The 
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most prevalent form of serious rural crime is armed livestock rustling. Rustling and brigand 

activity, often linked to ethnic feuds, have rendered much of the North-Eastern Province and 

parts of the Coast and Eastern Provinces virtually ungovernable. Other prevalent forms of rural 

crime, attacks on tourists and poaching, have intermittently been better controlled, in particular, 

by the British Special Air Service (SAS)-trained Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). 

Terrorism: Kenya’s vulnerability to Islamic terrorists operating under the al-Qaeda banner has 

been demonstrated by several attacks. Kenya was attacked first in 1998 when a car bomb blew 

up the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, killing well over 200 people, mostly Kenyans, and again in 

2002, when suicide bombers killed 15 people in the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Kikambala 

near Mombasa, and when terrorists reportedly shot a missile at an Israeli airliner at Mombasa 

airport. The embassy bombing was one of the most serious attacks on American interests outside 

the United States. Warnings of further possible terrorist activity in Kenya in May 2003 led to a 

six-week suspension of commercial flights from the United Kingdom to Kenya and negative 

travel advisories by several Western countries. The advisories have since been withdrawn or, in 

the U.S. case, softened. The United States renewed travel warnings about Kenya on December 

28, 2004. 

Located in the Horn region, Kenya faces an ongoing threat of terrorist attacks. The 1998 and 

2002 attacks, according to a recent United Nations report, were prepared by a Somalia-based alQaeda–linked group in neighboring Somalia, which is beset by a strong fundamentalist presence, 

weak rule of law, and arms smuggling from Yemen. Kenya’s Somalia border area, with its ethnic 

Somali communities, and the long, poorly guarded Indian Ocean coastline remain potential entry 

points for outside extremists. Kenya’s own Muslim community on the coast, while largely 

moderate, offers a potential foothold for terrorist infiltrators. 

Under pressure from the West and anxious to revive tourism, Kenya has taken action against 

suspected Islamic extremists, detaining and interrogating dozens of people in several drives in 

2003. In 2004 four Kenyans were charged with involvement in the Paradise Hotel attacks. The 

four were acquitted on murder charges, but one was rearrested and sentenced in 2007 to eight 

years’ imprisonment on firearms charges. Several other terrorism-related cases have ended in 

acquittals or dropped charges. In 2007 Kenya transferred a suspected al-Qaeda operative to 

Guantanamo Bay and, possibly, other suspects into custody elsewhere, e.g., in Somalia. 

Kenya has sought to improve its security apparatus and legal framework to fight terrorism. In 

January 2004, Kenya opened the new National Counter-Terrorism Center, the first of its kind in 

Africa. The center aims to improve security throughout the Horn of Africa by coordinating 

information. Kenya also formed an interagency Coastal Security Steering Committee. Generally 

cooperative with the United States, Kenya has been a beneficiary of the U.S. aid to, for example, 

train its Anti-Terror Police Unit and upgrade air and seaport security. The Kenyan military also 

has participated in training and operations with the 1,800-member, U.S.-sponsored Combined 

Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa (JTF–HOA), a task force created to disrupt transnational 

terrorist groups in the Horn of Africa region. Kenya’s government has taken steps to combat 

money laundering and terrorist financing, with a pending money-laundering bill, guidelines 

issued by the Central Bank, and the closure of Charterhouse Bank. The government has made 

some progress on improving aviation security. However, efforts to enact counterterrorism 
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legislation, underway since 2003, have as yet been unsuccessful. In 2006 the National Assembly 

shelved a long-pending antiterrorism bill in the face of criticism from human rights groups and 

Kenyan Muslim communities. 

Human Rights: The Kibaki government has worked to improve the human rights environment 

in Kenya and has reduced the use of the legal system to harass government critics. The Moi 

administration consistently received international criticism of its record on human rights. Under 

Moi, security forces regularly subjected opposition leaders and pro-democracy activists to 

arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, abuse in custody, and lethal force. International donors 

and governments such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Norway 

periodically broke off diplomatic relations and suspended aid allocations, pending human rights 

improvement. Under the new government, politically motivated human rights violations have 

diminished, but other serious human rights abuses persist, a great many at the hands of security 

forces, particularly the police. The police force is widely viewed as the most corrupt entity in the 

country, given to extorting bribes, complicity in criminal activity, and using excessive force 

against both criminal suspects and crowds. Most police who commit abuses still do so with 

impunity. Prison conditions remain life threatening. Apart from police and penal system abuses, 

infringements of rights in the course of legal proceedings are widespread, despite recent pressure 

on judicial personnel. Freedom of speech and of the press continue to be compromised through 

various forms of harassment of journalists and activists, such as the March 2006 police raids on 

facilities of the Kenya Television Network and The Standard, Kenya’s oldest newspaper. 

Violence and discrimination against women are rife. Women’s property rights violations are 

prevalent, aggravating the fact that women, although constituting 80 percent of the agricultural 

labor force, own only about 5 percent of the land. The abuse of children, including in forced 

labor and prostitution, is a serious problem. Female genital mutilation (FGM) remains 

widespread, despite 2001 legislation against it for girls under 16. The abuse of women and girls, 

including early marriage and wife inheritance, is a factor in the spread of human 

immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). 

Kenya made some progress in 2003, when it set up the Kenya National Human Rights 

Commission, with a mandate to ensure Kenya’s compliance with international human rights 

standards. Also, parliament passed the Children’s Act to ensure the protection of minors, as well 

as the Disability Act, outlawing discrimination against the disabled. 

In 2007 Kenya, along with Ethiopia, the United States, and the Transitional Federal Government 

of Somalia, was implicated in a secret detention program for people who fled the fighting 

between the Union of Islamic Courts and the joint forces of the Transitional Federal Government 

and Ethiopia from December 2006 through January 2007. Kenyan security forces allegedly 

arrested at least 150 individuals at crossing points with Somalia, held them without charge, and 

transferred them for interrogation to detention facilities in Ethiopia.