Over the years, IFC has also been working with financial institutions to increase lending to small businesses and those focused on addressing climate change.Īs of February 28, 2023, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is actively engaged in Kenya with $484.2 million in guarantees covering the energy, financial, fintech, and road sectors. The advisory program complements IFC’s investments and is growing in key strategic areas such as healthcare, affordable housing, and financial inclusion. IFC also has an advisory portfolio of $58 million. Other investments are in education, environment, finance, digital development, competitiveness and innovation, governance, health, nutrition and population, poverty and equity, social protection, social sustainability and inclusion, and in urban.Īs of June 30, 2023, the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) investment portfolio in Kenya totaled $1.16 billion across a number of key sectors including manufacturing, agribusiness, financial services, infrastructure, and technology. Transport takes the largest share of investments at 14%, macroeconomics, trade and investment follows with 12%, agriculture at 11%, while energy and extractives and water are at 10% each. The International Development Association (IDA) and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) portfolio stands at $8.1 billion in 38 projects: 27 national and 11 regional projects. It also aligns directly with the World Bank’s Africa Strategy, focused on jobs and economic transformation, digital economy, human capital, universal access to electricity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, addressing fragility, conflict, and violence, and achieving gender equality. The CPF drew from the WBG’s Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) FY14-FY20 for Kenya, lessons from the CPS Completion and Learning Review (FY22), the FY20 Systematic Country Diagnostic, a Country Private Sector Diagnostic (FY19), over 34 stakeholder consultations, and is aligned to the Kenya Vision 2030. The FY23-FY28 Country Partnership Framework (CPF), endorsed by the World Bank Group (WBG) Board of Executive Directors in November 2022, set out the strategy to support Kenya’s transformation into a middle-income economy that achieves inclusivity and resilience and builds on the WBG’s comparative advantages in Kenya. In addition to aligning the country’s long-term development agenda to Kenya’s Vision 2030−which aims to transform Kenya into a competitive and prosperous country with a high quality of life−the government’s bottom-up economic model prioritizes agriculture, healthcare, affordable housing, micro and small enterprises, and the digital and creative economy. World Bank support to Kenya includes budget support to help close the fiscal financing gap while supporting reforms that help advance the government’s inclusive growth agenda. Although the economic outlook is broadly positive, it is subject to elevated uncertainty, including through Kenya’s exposure (as a net fuel, wheat, and fertilizer importer) to the global price impacts of the war in Ukraine. The poverty rate has resumed its trend decline after rising earlier in the pandemic. GDP growth however declined to 4.8% in 2022 and is projected to grow at 5.0% in 2023. In 2021, the economy staged a strong recovery, with the economy growing at 7.5% although some sectors, such as tourism, remained under pressure. Fortunately, the agricultural sector, a cornerstone of the economy, remained resilient, helping to limit the contraction in GDP to only 0.3%. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shock hit the economy hard, disrupting international trade and transport, tourism, and urban services activity. Kenya’s economy achieved broad-based growth averaging 4.8% per year between 2015-2019, significantly reducing poverty (from 36.5% in 2005 to 27.2% in 2019 ($2.15/day poverty line). However, its key development challenges still include poverty, inequality, youth unemployment, transparency and accountability, climate change, continued weak private sector investment, and the vulnerability of the economy to internal and external shocks. The country has made significant political and economic reforms that have contributed to sustained economic growth, social development, and political stability gains over the past decade.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |