A day like today in 2027, Kenya will be at the cusp of one of the most defining moments in history. We will be going to the polls as usual, but this one feels a little different for several reasons. First, there’s the possibility we get a one-term president. Second, it’s possible we may get a president who is neither Kikuyu nor Kalenjin, and third, there’s a possibility we may get a president who is relatively young compared to what we’ve seen before.

At Stats Kenya, we’ve been running polls to test public sentiment and gauge what direction the election will tilt. Our first telephone poll was in March, followed by the current one in July. As you’d expect, the results are interesting.

Who Would Win the 2027 Elections?

If the elections were held today, no contender has enough muscle to win the election. The incumbent President William Ruto is polling at 19.14%, down from 23.14% in our March 2026 poll. This is not enough to win the election since it falls way below the 50+1 constitutional threshold.

Edwin Sifuna’s popularity has surged significantly between March, when we first polled him, and July. As of July 2026, Sifuna would get 13.81% of the vote if he vied. This appears quite impressive for the 44-year-old, who is now 5.33 percentage points behind Ruto.

Other presidential hopefuls, including Fred Matiang’i, Kalonzo Musyoka, and Rigathi Gachagua, have either dropped points or are still mark-timing with no significant gains in popularity.

Fred Matiang’i, for example, was the most popular opposition candidate in our March poll at 12.25%. That spot has, however, slipped, with only 7.69% of Kenyan adults saying they’d vote for him in our July poll. Similarly, Kalonzo Musyoka has seen a drop from 8.17% in March 2026 to 6.73% in July 2026. Rigathi Gachagua is the slight exception, receiving 5.16% in our July poll, up from 3.99% in March. This could be explained by, among other things, the court judgment that found he was wrongly ousted, and also the Ol Kalou by-election, which was a resounding win for DCP.

President Ruto’s Approval Ratings Continue to Surfer

In the two periods between March and July 2026, President Ruto’s popularity has continued to drop, with fewer people claiming they approve of his performance in office.

In July, only 27.6% of Kenyans said they approved of the president’s performance in office, down from 32% in March. In contrast, his disapproval in July was 32.3%. To some degree, this drop in approval reflects the same drop we have seen in his 2027 chances.

Will Elections be Free and Fair?

Slightly less than half of Kenyan adults believe the 2027 elections will be free and fair. Comparing with our March poll, we see that around 48.2% of Kenyan adults believed the election would be free and fair, higher than 46.1% in March.

The proportion that does not believe elections will be free and fair dropped slightly to 26.7% in July, from 28.9% in March.

Voter Registration

The share of respondents who said they were registered voters in our sample increased from 57.4% in March to 78.1% in July.

Similarly, unregistered voters reduced from 36.9% to 21.1%.

Conclusion

Our July 2026 poll has shown a massive increase in Edwin Sifuna’s popularity. His influence appears to go beyond online support, translating to real ground penetration. William Ruto’s chances in the 2027 election remain bleak as he continues to lose not only popularity but also critical support from people who previously swore to re-elect him.

If you want to learn more about our findings, including how they compare with Tifa’s, county distributions, and strategic implications for various candidates, will be doing a thorough deep dive of our data, revealing unexpected patterns we should all watch out for.

Methodology

Our survey targeted all Kenyan adults of voting age, whether or not they were registered to vote. We do this because IEBC is yet to fully open up voter registration, and we expect that a large number of individuals, including Gen Zs, are yet to register as voters.

We developed a simple program to randomly generate phone numbers, ensuring that each Kenyan phone number had an equal and independent probability of being selected for the survey. Any children who picked up calls were directed to hand over the phone to their parents or were otherwise dropped.

The survey was mostly delivered in Kiswahili. English was used in a minority of cases, especially where the respondent themselves felt comfortable or insisted on using the language.

Other key details of the survey include:

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Kenya’s debt in a nutshell

Our debt crossed the KSh 13 trillion mark in May 2026. One thing that stands out is that President Ruto has borrowed KSh 4.3 trillion in four years, which translates to a borrowing spree of more than a trillion shillings annually.

President Uhuru, who initiated the debt binge, borrowed KSh 6.8 trillion in 10 years, translating to about KSh 682 billion annually. This should tell us that so far, there’s no slowdown in debt accumulation, and that old debt often gets replaced with new, more expensive debt.

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Why are we in a vicious cycle of debt accumulation?

There are several reasons why the government of Kenya is unable to wean itself out of the debt problem. The first reason is that we have a massive deficit, meaning we spend more than we collect in revenues. For example, in the coming financial year, the government expects to spend KSh 4.82 trillion, having collected KSh 3.67 trillion in revenues. The deficit is KSh 1.15 trillion, which will be financed by new debt.

The second reason is that the government is consistently faced with debt servicing obligations that eat up a huge chunk of the national budget. We can see from the chart below that in 2025 alone, the government had to service KSh 1.72 trillion of principal and interest payments accrued from old debt.

Debt repayments of more than a trillion shillings are eating up a large share of what the government collects. In 2025, debt servicing was 71.2% of all government revenues, meaning that for every 100 shillings that the government collected, KSh 71.2 went towards repaying the debt. The remaining KSh 28.8 is what was left for recurrent and development expenditure. However, such an amount is rarely enough, and the government has to get more debt to meet its development and recurrent needs.

It is for this reason that the current government has found itself between a rock and a hard place. From the chart above, it is evident that previous presidents didn’t have much of a debt-servicing problem, and were, therefore, incentivized to borrow with almost no consequence. Today, the current president is not only obligated to pay debt, but also faces a severe constraint where current revenues can’t meet development needs. The government’s solution is the National Infrastructure Fund, where proceeds of privatization will be used to finance development without taking new debt.

We are mostly repaying domestic debt

Most of our debt repayment obligations go toward servicing domestic debt, which is money borrowed locally as the government issues bonds and T-bills. In 2025, we serviced domestic debt to the tune of KSh 1.14 trillion, 66% of total debt servicing. A majority were interest payments amounting to KSh 776.26 billion.

In contrast, external debt servicing wasn’t much of a bigger problem, with interest servicing amounting to KSh 211.2 billion and principal payments of KSh 367.8 billion. The reason for this is that external debt is usually much cheaper than domestic debt. However, since accessing external loans usually comes with encumbrances and other strings attached, the government often prefers to borrow locally to settle short-term obligations. Additionally, the government may borrow locally to avoid external currency shocks, which may temporarily make debt repayment significantly expensive. You can see this in the chart below, where USD appreciation against KES in 2024 made Kenya’s debt quite expensive.

The government’s current strategy is to borrow locally, which has the effect of crowding out private sector borrowing while also stacking up more expensive debt. This means that future governments will have to contend with high domestic interest servicing costs and a less vibrant private sector.

Conclusion

Kenya’s debt problem is made worse by the annual debt servicing obligations, where we have to pay both the interest and principal of the debt we borrowed in the past. These payments have taken a large portion of the Kenyan budget, leaving very little for development. Today’s government continues to borrow at a rate of KSh 1 trillion annually, as it tries to manage the budget deficit, repay debt, and start new development programs. However, this is not enough as domestic interest payments continue to compound at an alarming rate, requiring even higher levels. So far, it remains to be seen whether the National Infrastructure Fund will deliver on its promise to finance infrastructure without borrowing.

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This is important, and by now you may already be feeling the pinch on your budgets. In fact, if you’ve been an adult long enough, the cost of living has consistently been on the rise for the last decade or so, and the amount of goods and services you buy today is certainly fewer than what you would have bought with the same amount five years ago.

We know that is true because that’s exactly what the Consumer Price Index tells us. The CPI is a measure of inflation, meaning it gives us the average change in the price level of a basket of goods and services over time. In Kenya, our baseline is 2019, meaning we compare the prices of goods today with what they were in 2019. Can you remember what the prices of unga, rice, or cooking oil were in 2019?

Here’s the answer. Since the CPI in May 2026 stood at 154.56 (with 2019 = 100), this means that the average basket of goods and services that cost KSh 100 in 2019 would cost approximately KSh 154.56 in May 2026. In other words, consumer prices have risen by about 54.6% over that period. Using the CPI, you can estimate what goods and services that you regularly purchase would have cost seven years ago in today's shillings.

Why the increase in fuel prices has made life costly

As KNBS calculates the CPI and inflation rates, it’s cautious to separate between highly volatile commodities whose prices may change at a whim and those that don’t. A good example is fuel, whose prices are reviewed every month by EPRA, and have so far been the cause of widespread demonstrations.

As of May 2026, the non-core inflation rose to 16%, while core inflation was 3.2%. This tells us that the current inflation rate of 6.7% is being caused by some shocks in the market and is, therefore, expected to be temporary.

In our case, the temporary shock is being caused by the sudden rise in fuel prices, which has heavily influenced the cost of transportation across the country. The table below shows which parts of the economy are heavily affected. Transport inflation is at 16.5%, meaning you are already paying more for transportation compared to the same time last year.

Food inflation is also very high at 9.4%, and it will cost you more to put food on the table.

What to expect going forward

If GoK continues having problems with fuel, then we’ll certainly continue having challenges with non-core inflation. However, assuming all fuel-related issues are resolved on time, and maybe no new war starts, the inflation rate will also come down. In the meantime, expect the prices of basic commodities to increase as transportation costs also soar.

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The cost of living, however, is not the end of the story, and Kenya’s protest, riot, and demonstration scene is further complicated by the actions of a very unpopular government. Our March 2026 poll showed that only 32% of respondents approved of President Ruto’s performance in office. Perhaps this is by design, given the very unpopular policies that the government has passed, or is planning to pass, through bills such as the Finance Bill, which triggered the initial waves of protests in 2024. Therefore, with these contexts, we get to understand that Kenya’s protests aren’t happening in a vacuum.

So far, Kenya is the only country among the three Eastern African countries to have a very turbulent social scene. As of 20th May, 2026, halfway through the month, we’ve already had 78 protest and riot events in the country. Last month, we had 156 total protests.

Uganda and Tanzania have, however, remained very chill, with little history of demonstrations. In Tanzania, the largest protests of the decade happened in October 2025, neatly coinciding with the general election that was characterized by significant unrest.

Uganda, while being generally more turbulent than Tanzania, has mostly maintained fewer than 25 protests every month over the last decade. The largest protests in Uganda happened in 2021, again coinciding with the country’s election year.

Kenya also maintains five-year protest cycles that coincide with general elections, as you can see in 2017 and 2022 from the chart above. However, what we are witnessing recently is that the largest protests ever have happened in non-election years. The largest were in 2024, when Kenya recorded 2,009 total protests triggered by the Finance Bill. It is followed by 2025, with 1,752 total protests, often characterized as anniversary demonstrations for fallen Gen Zs.

It is also quite evident that President Ruto had a very short honeymoon period, since, as early as 2023, the country was already seeing more protests than usual. In 2026, with more than half of the year ahead of us, Kenya has already seen 613 protests, compared to just 21 in Tanzania and 47 in Uganda.

The question now remains: What will the rest of the year look like, given what we already know? First, it is worth noting that 2027 is an election year, and with 5-year protest cycles, it’s almost guaranteed that we will have them next year. For 2027, two questions remain: what will be the scale, and will AFCON 2027 be distracting enough?

Second, the rest of the year remains unpredictable, even though we can look at precedents from previous years. In the last five years or so, a majority of Kenyan protests usually come in the third quarter, which is the period between July and September. This period can be characterized as the post-finance bill, post-budget reading period, which is expected to be emotionally charged, as more Kenyans reflect on their socioeconomic status amidst conversations on taxes, spending, debt, and governance. With fuel prices, which were often not part of the conversation in previous years, already setting the tone in a pre-finance bill, pre-budget quarter, we can brace for additional protests going forward, as has become the doctrine.

Additionally, even though most protests happen in the third quarter, we can also not ignore the fact that the momentum is usually built in the second quarter (April - June), as we see in 2024, and as we are currently seeing with fuel protests.

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To sum up, the tone for the rest of the year seems to have already been set by ongoing fuel protests, and we should expect a lot more going forward. If the government is not careful, further fuel-price increases and taxes are likely to complicate the protest scene further in the lead-up to an election year, often characterized by widespread protests and riots.

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This is the third installment in a series evaluating whether President Ruto’s government is making any progress towards meeting the promises it made to the people of Kenya in 2022 through its manifesto. You can read the first one here and the second here. Even though the Kenya Kwanza manifesto promised much, our aim is to remain objective and highlight only those promises that are measurable and verifiable through independent data and facts. For example, the promise to increase domestic rice production from 18% to 40% is objective and verifiable, therefore, subject to our assessment. However, a promise such as “strengthen Jua Kali industry capacity to produce high quality construction productions” is not objective, and thus not verifiable. We will run this exercise through 2027, during which we will declare whether President Ruto has achieved or failed in his manifesto.

If you wish to participate in this project, there are two ways to do so. Support us via a donation to paybill number 880100 and account number 190200. You can also participate by conducting independent research and contributing to this project HERE.

Ruto’s Promise to Complete All Roads Under Construction in 2022

When President Ruto came into office in September 2022, various major road projects across the country were already under construction. These projects had been started by his predecessor, President Uhuru Kenyatta, and would need to be completed in Ruto’s administration.

As a result, the UDA administration made two key commitments to improve the quality of the country's infrastructure. These commitments can be found in Kenya Kwanza’s manifesto here, and include:

1. Complete all roads under construction.

2. Prioritise upgrading and maintenance of rural access roads, as well as the improvement of road infrastructure in urban informal settlements and critical national and regional trunk roads that have the highest immediate economic impact.

In this article, we only evaluate the first commitment. To do this, we only need to look at which major road works were ongoing as of December 2022 and compare their progress in December 2025. We use a simple criterion: any road with a completion rate of 99% or higher is considered complete. Any road with a completion rate between 95% and 98% is considered semi-complete, while roads with completion rates below 95% are considered incomplete.

Based on recent data from the Kenya Economic Survey (KNBS, 2026), we find that, as of December 2025, 64.1% of the 39 major road projects that were still under construction in December 2022 remained incomplete.

President Ruto has completed only 10.3% of the roads, with another 17.9% nearing completion. The status of another 7.7% of the roads could not be established as of 2025.

It is worth noting that some of the completed road projects by this administration were already nearing completion in 2022. For instance, the Thika Bypass was 90% complete in 2022 and was fully completed by 2024. The Kiogori-Gesure-Itibo-Masongo road was nearly complete in 2022 and was completed 100% by December 2024.

The Eldoret Bypass was 92% complete in 2022. By 2023, the project was complete at 99.9%. The Naivasha-Njabini road was 97% complete in 2022 and was finalized by 2023.

What this tells us is that, even though these projects were completed during Ruto’s administration, they were all close to completion in 2022.

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Even though Kwenya Kwanza committed to finishing these road projects, some people may argue that the current government is paying less attention to projects started in the previous administration and is instead focusing on projects it has initiated itself.

We also evaluated this data and found around 13 road projects that started after 2022. Of these, only three (23%) are complete, with a majority being short-distance road works. For example, the Waiyaki Way - Redhill Link Road was started in 2024, and by 2025, the road had been declared 100% complete. The road was 5.8 kilometers.

The Ngong Road - Kibera - Kungu Kurumba - Langata Road is also 100% complete, even though it was commissioned in 2024. The road is only 3.4 kilometers long.

Another completed road project is the Kangundo Road - Greater Easter Bypass Link Road, which is 10 kilometers, and was completed by 2024.

The rest of the roads remain incomplete.

Overall, what we now know given these data is that:

1. Most of the road projects that Ruto promised to complete remain incomplete, 3 years after he took office. With only one year to the elections, it remains to be seen whether these roads will actually be completed.

2. Most road projects completed by this administration were already nearing completion in 2022. This suggests that the current administration has only finalized the little that remained from the previous administration.

3. Of the roads that Ruto has commissioned himself, only three short-distance roads have been completed. The rest remain incomplete as of December 2025.

Will Ruto’s Administration Adhere to the Fresh Promises It is Making to the People?

President Ruto is yet to complete most of the projects he inherited from the previous administration. He has yet to complete most of the projects he has initiated himself. However, he continues to make serious promises such as:

1. To build the Rironi-Mau Summit Road.

2. The Mombasa Expressway.

3. The SGR to Malaba.

All these are capital-intensive infrastructural projects that will either require new debt, the operationalization of the National Infrastructure Fund, or PPP funding. It therefore remains to be seen whether they’ll be delivered, even as previously launched projects stall and go unfinished.

Our Verdict

At the start of his term, President Ruto promised to complete all ongoing road projects in the country. An analysis of current data shows that 64.1% of the road projects he inherited at the beginning of his term remain incomplete. This means Ruto has failed in his commitment and has delivered less than ten percent of the promise. Additionally, most of the road projects he has completed consist mainly of low-hanging fruit that were either nearing completion by 2022 or involved roads less than 10 km long. A majority of critical road projects linking key regions, counties, and areas remain stalled and incomplete. Despite these failures, the president continues to make even bigger promises to the people of Kenya.

Kenya is headed towards yet another election in 2027, and the campaigns have already started.

As the political scene gets hotter by the day, the Stats Kenya team is gearing up its polls, bringing clarity where there’s none. In this article, we release the results of our opinion poll conducted between the second and the fourth weeks of March 2026.

If Elections Were Held Today, Who Would You Vote For?

• 23.4% of our respondents would vote for William Ruto.

• 12.3% would vote for Fred Matiang’i.

• 8.2% would vote for Kalonzo Musyoka.

• 7.4% would vote for Edwin Sifuna.

• 4% would vote for Rigathi Gachagua.

• 1.5% would vote for David Maraga.

• 1% would vote for Oburu Odinga.

• 0.4% would vote for Okiya Omtata

• 29% of our respondents were still undecided by the time of the survey.

• 7.4% refused to say who they’d vote for.

• 5.6% would either not vote or would not vote for any of the candidates listed.

What are Prediction Markets Saying?

We are also following up on the Kenyan Prediction Market 5050 Markets to benchmark our polls and get closer to the truth.

According to 5050 Markets, President Ruto currently has a 71% chance of winning the coming elections. Prediction markets tend to be more accurate than traditional polls, since the financial stake pushes traders to be more rational.

However, we expect these markets to get tighter as more Kenyans discover prediction markets and participate in them.

There’s Still a Large Number of Kenyan Adults Who Haven’t Registered to Vote

Voter registration will influence key outcomes in the 2027 election. The Niko Kadi movement is one of the ongoing initiatives that seeks to increase voter registration among the youth.

The IEBC is also on a campaign to increase voter registration through its Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration (ECVR).

The results of our survey reveal the acute need to register more people, as only 57.4% of our respondents were registered voters.

The number of unregistered voters was quite high, accounting for 36.9% of the respondents.

Will the 2027 Kenya General Election be Free and Fair?

Slightly less than half of our respondents (46.1%) believed the coming election would be free and fair.

On the other hand, more than a quarter of the respondents (28.9%) believed the election would not be free and fair.

Institutional trust in the elections and in the IEBC is essential if we are to run a successful electioneering period. Without trust, emotions run high, and the chances of violence increase significantly.

It is, therefore, worth asking, what is the IEBC doing to assure Kenyans that the elections will be free and fair?

President Ruto’s Approval Rating Remains Low

In 2022, President William Ruto won the elections, having garnered 50.49% of the vote.

With a year to the elections, our survey currently shows that only 32% of respondents approve of the president, with 34% of our respondents disapproving of him.

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But first things first, the title of this article asks whether Tanzanian ports are overtaking the port of Mombasa. This is an interesting choice of words because, to be fair, Tanzania has four ports, and we have two, including the port of Lamu. Most of the time, when the headlines drop, the comparison is usually between the port of Mombasa and the port of Dar Es Salaam. In this article, we look at all the ports for each country, but some of the charts are detailed enough for you to see the economic position of each individual port.

Second, its common practice to compare port activity based on TEU capacity. TEUs refer to 20-foot equivalent units, which are a standard way of measuring containerized cargo, and highlight the capacity of a typical container. However, the problem with TEU is that it fails to highlight other port activity, including handling of goods that aren’t containerized, such as fuel that comes in tankers, dry bulk goods, machinery and vehicles, and other general cargo. In this article, however, we look into all these other types of cargo to paint a picture of what exactly is going on within ports.

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Kenya handles double the number of TEUs than Tanzania

The most common benchmark for assessing port activity is by tracking the number of Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) passing through each port. Simply put, this reflects the total number of containers going through each port.

The numbers look strongly in favour of Kenyan ports, which are hauling double the number of containers compared to Tanzanian ports. In 2022, Kenyan ports handled 1.45 million TEUs while Tanzanian ports handled 700,000.

As previously stated, however, the number of TEUs fails to capture all the port activity, as a lot of cargo usually doesn’t come in containers. Another way would be to look at the number of vessel arrivals in each port.

More ships dock at the port of Mombasa than at Dar Es Salaam

Looking at Kenyan ports, Mombasa and Lamu, we see that the port of Mombasa has the highest number of port calls. Port calls represent vessel arrivals in each port for a wide range of activities like cargo handling, maintenance, refuelling, crew changes, or for regulatory reasons. Efficient and reliable port calls usually mean lower lost revenue and demurrage costs.

Since 2024, the port of Mombasa has been receiving between 120 and 150 vessels monthly. Lamu port, on the other hand, saw a huge decline in port calls between 2022 and 2025, with a slight resurgence in late 2025 and early 2026.

Tanzanian ports receive much lower traffic compared to the port of Mombasa. Its largest port in Dar Es Salaam, for instance, has received between 60 and 100 ships every month between 2022 and 2026. The numbers suggest that the port of Mombasa receives, on average, 60 more ships every month compared to the port of Dar Es Salaam.

What stands out, however, with Tanzania is that its other ports are doing much better than Kenya’s Lamu port. The only time Lamu port received a consistent number of vessels was between 2019 and 2022. Afterwards, the port saw little to no vessels, until late 2025 and early 2026, probably triggered by the war in the Middle East.

The Tanzanian port of Zanzibar, on the other hand, does more than 20 port calls monthly, while Tanga and Mtwara do between 10 and 20 vessels monthly. If you do some rough calculations, you’ll notice that these other ports in Tanzania wipe out the 60-vessels-a-month advantage that Mombasa has over Tanzania. We see this in the chart below, whereby, cumulatively, Tanzanian ports appear to have more vessel-arrivals than Kenyan ports. What’s even more interesting is that vessel arrivals in Tanzania appear to be increasing starting in 2022. This is mostly driven by the smaller ports of Zanzibar, Mtwara, and Tanga.

To this point, it is evident that, based on TEUs, Kenyan ports are in the lead. However, looking at vessel arrivals, both countries are at par, with Tanzanian ports quickly catching up with Kenyan ports, which, before 2022, were significantly ahead.

The disadvantage of looking at port calls/vessel arrivals is that we never know the actual capacity of these vessels, which consequently does not tell us about the economic might of both ports. Additionally, port calls may not necessarily lead to loading and offloading of cargo. For these reasons, we need to look at the total tonnage of imports coming through each country’s ports.

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More imports go via Kenyan ports than Tanzanian ports

Kenyan ports have been doing above 1.6 million tonnes of cargo since 2024. Within the same period, Tanzanian ports have been averaging between 800,000 tons and 1.4 million tons.

This metric gives us a much better view of what’s going on in each port, given that most cargo can be weighed in tons. As a result, it works better than TEUs and reveals a narrowing gap between the two countries.

Starting in 2021, Tanzanian ports have seen an increasing number of tons imported through its imports. As a result, even though more tonnage is imported through Kenyan ports, growth in the Tanzanian side seems much more consistent, with their ports now doing more than a million tons in imports since late 2024.

Like every other data we’ve looked at, relying solely on this metric may cloud our judgment on the economic status of each country. This is because a country being too import dependent may not be a good thing, especially if there are no exports to offset some of the trade deficit. However, since we are only evaluating how important each country’s ports are, we can get away with not commenting on the relative effect this has on each country’s economy. It is also worth noting that some of these imports go deep into the hinterland, beyond Kenya or Tanzania and into Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zambia.

But Tanzanian ports are doing more exports

Yes, we certainly do not wish to comment on the economies of each country, given that this article is only about the competitiveness of each country’s ports. However, Tanzanian ports doing more exports than Kenyan ports speaks volumes about the Kenyan economy.

Sure, for both countries, the exports aren’t that much. However, what we see in Tanzania is that their ports used to do fewer exports than Kenyan ports. Today, Tanzanian exports have risen and are currently doing more exports, probably driven by higher gold and tanzanite exports. This may not be evidence of the competitiveness of Tanzanian ports; instead, it appears to speak volumes about the Tanzanian export economy vis-à-vis the Kenyan one.

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What exactly goes through Kenyan ports

Like the previous section on imports and exports, this one too highlights the structure of each country’s economy and its unique features.

A majority of vessels that dock in Kenyan ports usually bring containerized cargo. We’ve seen an especially steep increase in vessels bringing this cargo type between late 2022 and 2026. Between 2019 and 2022, we saw a large number of ships with dry bulk cargo, which, for the Kenyan context, may entail ships carrying grains [which we import in large quantities] and fertiliser. During that period, we also saw a lot of vessels with general cargo and fuel tankers.

The least common cargo type is RoRo (Roll On Roll Off), a shipping method for goods that can roll by themselves onto the ship, such as cars and other machinery with wheels. Since 2022, we’ve been seeing fewer of these vessels in our ports, which again may be indicative of the state of the economy, or if not so, people are choosing to import cars in containers.

Compared to Kenyan ports, vessel arrivals in Tanzanian ports are of vastly different cargo types. For instance, containerized vessels do not dominate Tanzanian ports as we see in Kenya, which explains the low TEUs. Instead, the difference between containerized cargo and other cargo types is much smaller. What’s similar is that vessel arrivals hauling RORO are just as few in Tanzania as in Kenya, with both countries seeing fewer than 20 vessels every month.

What stands out in Tanzanian ports is the steady increase in general cargo and dry bulk vessels arriving there. In Kenya, however, General Cargo and Dry Bulk vessel types show a consistent decline over the years. Does this suggest a preference for Tanzanian ports for these types of cargo over Kenyan ports, or is this just evidence of another structural difference between the two economies?

Are Tanzanian ports overtaking Kenya?

We’ve looked into this question from different perspectives, and this is what we’ve learned.

1. Looking into each port, we found that Kenyan ports handle double the number of containerized cargo (TEUs) compared to Tanzanian ports. Looking into port calls by cargo type, we see that this could be explained by a significantly larger number of container vessels in Kenyan ports compared to Tanzanian ports [Tanzania Lagging].

2. It was also evident from the data that smaller Tanzanian ports like Zanzibar, Mtwara, and Tanga are more competitive and busier than the Kenyan port of Lamu. Cumulatively, these ports push the total number of port calls in Tanzanian ports to equal or exceed the total number of vessels arriving in Kenyan ports [Tanzania Catching UP/Overtaking].

3. More imports in tons pass through Kenyan ports than Tanzanian ports. However, the data also shows an increasing trend in the Tanzanian side, suggesting continued growth of imports [Tanzania Catching Up].

4. In contrast, however, Tanzanian ports export more than Kenyan ones. Kenya used to hold this advantage, but not anymore. This is the one metric where Tanzanian ports have outdone Kenyan ports [Tanzania Overtaking].

5. Finally, even though Kenyan ports hold a unique advantage over containerized vessels, Tanzanian ports have seen an increasing number of dry bulk and general cargo port calls, while at the same time, Kenyan ports have seen a reduced number of such vessels. Such a substitution effect does not appear to be in Kenya’s favor, unless there’s a structural economic reason for that, e.g., lower grain imports, etc.

Overall, Kenyan ports cannot afford complacency, especially given the inactivity we are seeing in Lamu. The port of Lamu needs to make equal or more port calls compared to Tanzanian ports such as Zanzibar, Mtwara, and Tanga. This would eliminate the catching-up effect that we are seeing in Tanzania. Additionally, focusing on TEUs blinds us to other crucial cargo that comes through our ports, and which may be leveraged by competitor ports in Tanzania.

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This is the second installment in a series evaluating whether President Ruto’s government is making any progress towards meeting the promises it made to the people of Kenya in 2022 through its manifesto. You can read the first one here. Even though the Kenya Kwanza manifesto promised much, our aim is to remain objective and highlight only those promises that are measurable and verifiable through independent data and facts. For example, the promise to increase domestic rice production from 18% to 40% is objective and verifiable, therefore, subject to our assessment. However, a promise such as “strengthen Jua Kali industry capacity to produce high quality construction productions” is not objective, and thus not verifiable. We will run this exercise through 2027, during which we will declare whether President Ruto has achieved or failed in his manifesto.

If you wish to participate in this project, there are two ways to do so. Support us via a donation to paybill number 880100 and account number 190200. You can also participate by conducting independent research and contributing to this project HERE.

Photo by Khalil Radi on Unsplash

Kenya’s Undernutrition Landscape

Kenya is one of the most undernourished countries in the world, with the FAO finding that 36.8% of the population eats food that does not provide enough energy to maintain a normal, healthy, and active lifestyle. This problem is especially pronounced among Kenyan children, who are more likely to suffer from stunting and wasting, with both estimated to have caused 6,910 child deaths in Kenya in 2023.

Kenya’s school feeding program is, therefore, not just a noble project. Rather, it is a project meant to solve practical problems in Kenyan schools, where children are known to spend most of their day.

In arid, semi-arid, and Kenya’s informal settlements, the World Bank estimated that at least 3 million children were vulnerable, with a majority facing severe undernutrition. More recently, problems associated with climate change have compounded the scarcity in these regions, and now more than ever, children in Kenyan schools are forced to go without a meal.

However, the school meals aren’t just about feeding hungry children. More importantly, it’s the food that manages to keep the children in school. A school principal in Makueni summarized this view succinctly, noting that:

It's not just about feeding them. When they know there's a meal here, they choose to be here – studying, learning, staying on the right path.

This means that if we do not feed the children, we risk more than just undernutrition in our schools and homes. By not feeding them, we effectively take away the very lives and futures of our children since a majority are forced to drop out of school, and many others, especially girls, are pushed into early marriages.

As a result, when President Ruto made promises towards increasing funding for the school feeding program, we were all ears, and we have been following up on this promise to see how far he’s committed to his promises.

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President Ruto’s Promise

President Ruto, through the Kenya Kwanza Manifesto, made several key promises to the Kenyan people. One of them was expanding the scope of the school feeding program, which he had inherited from the previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and promised to make it better. His promises to the Kenyan people were as follows:

1. Double the amount of money allocated to the school feeding programme to immediately raise the number of beneficiaries from two million to four million;

2. and to provide conditional grants to county governments to extend the programme and raise the numbers to 8 million in primary and Early Child Development (ECD) schools.

Even though these entries are listed as two distinct promises, they are actually four. First, we need to evaluate whether the amount allocated to the school feeding program has doubled. Second, find out whether the beneficiaries of the program have increased from two million to four million, and what progress, if any, is being made. Third, we’ll assess whether the national government has actually provided any conditional grants to county governments relating to the school feeding program, and fourth, find out whether these programs have raised the beneficiaries to eight million.

Ruto’s Budget for the School Feeding Program

The president promised to double the budget for the school feeding program, meaning his subsequent budgets after 2022/23 would need to be double Uhuru Kenyatta’s budget. We can evaluate this simply by looking at the budget books, published by the National Treasury.

According to the 2022/2023 budget, which was President Uhuru’s final budget, the allocation to the school feeding program amounted to KSh 1.96 billion. This, therefore, becomes the baseline through which to judge whether Ruto has achieved his promise.

Subsequent budgets are as follows:

• 2023/2024 (Ruto’s first budget) - KSh 4.93 Billion.

• 2024/2025 (Ruto’s second budget) - KSh 3.6 Billion1.

• 2025/2026 (Ruto’s third budget) - KSh 3 billion.

• 2026/2027 (To be determined) -

• 2027/2028 (To be determined) -

From these figures, we establish that the only time when Ruto’s budget for the school feeding program was double Uhuru’s budget was in 2023/2024, when he allocated KSh 4.93 billion. Ruto did not double the allocation in his subsequent budgets, and what we in fact see is massive budget cuts for the program. As we shall see in the next section, this has had an impact on the school feeding program, which now feeds fewer children than it did before.

For purposes of this assessment, President Ruto still has one final chance to double the budget for the school feeding program in the 2026/2027 financial year, which may be his final year, unless he is re-elected. Our verdict, therefore, is that President Ruto has failed to meet the promise he made to Kenyans of doubling the amount allocated for the school feeding program.

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How Many Children are Enrolled in the School Feeding Program?

President Ruto’s second promise was to increase the number of children enrolled in the school feeding program from two million to four million. When President Uhuru Kenyatta was leaving office in 2022, the number of learners on the school meals program was 2,538,294. President Ruto, therefore, promised to increase this figure to 4 million, adding another 1,461,706 children to the program.

Data from the KNBS’s 2025 Economic Survey, however, reveals that President Ruto managed to increase the number of learners in the program to 2,653,263, adding 114,969 learners to the program.

However, following the budget cuts to the program between 2023 and 2025, the number of learners on the meals program declined between 2023 and 2024, dropping 1,648 children from the program. These are children who would previously have had their meals in school, but could no longer get the food. These are children who now risk being malnourished and are also likely to drop out of school.

Important to note that Kenya has 10,733,300 school-going pupils, which excludes children in ECDEs. So far, the school feeding program can only feed a quarter of these pupils, and even fewer, if we include those in Early Childhood Development.

The data, therefore, shows that President Ruto has not only failed to raise the number of school meals program participants to 4 million, but has also dropped 1,648 children from the program. This is an indication that his promise in the manifesto remains unachieved. With one year to go, it remains to be seen whether the government will make any considerable progress towards increasing the number of children benefiting from the school meals program.

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President Ruto’s Conditional Grants that Never Materialized

President Ruto’s manifesto also promised to provide conditional grants to county governments and to raise the number to 8 million in primary and ECD schools. However, as of this writing on February 28th, no such grants seem to have been availed. Here’s what we know so far:

1. In 2023, the Nairobi County Government signed an Intergovernmental Partnership Agreement with the National Government with the aim of implementing the school meals program in Nairobi County. This amounted to what’s now called Dishi na County.

2. The funding for the program was to be drawn from the consolidated fund and the county revenue fund. The national government and the county government settled on a 50:50 funding program. This, therefore, suggests that the funding mechanism would not in any way be based on a conditional grant from the national government.

3. The program was meant to last for three years, subject to renewal. This means that the outcomes of the project need to be assessed in 2026, three years later. First, reports suggest Nairobi County was allocated KSh 1.2 billion to feed an estimated 250,000 children. Parents were to pay an additional KSh 5, with the county covering what remains. As of 2023, this report suggests that 184,000 children have benefited from Dishi na County. Second, the County and the national government recently had another cooperation agreement in 2026, which excludes the school feeding program as part of its scope.

4. At the county level, no other intergovernmental partnership agreements exist between the national government and the counties. What we know is that implementation within the counties remains scattered and inconsistent.

Food 4 Education - An NGO Initiative

Outside the county and national government frameworks exists the Food 4 Education NGO, which, as of 2025, had made significant progress in feeding Kenyan children. The organization reported several key milestones by the end of 2025, including:

1. Feeding 576,000 children with meals every day.

2. F4E was present in 12 counties and 55 subcounties. Counties that were part of the program include Nairobi, Kiambu, Kisumu, Kakamega, Uasin Gishu, Machakos, Kajiado, Nakuru, Embu, Nyeri, Murang’a, and Mombasa.

3. The organization served around 1,500 schools.

4. Created employment for 4,300 people, with 78% being women.

5. F4E expanded into 5 new counties in 2025, including Embu, Kajiado, Kakamega, Nakuru, and Machakos. It plans to add Kisii, Homa Bay, Siaya, Bungoma, and Trans Nzoia in 2026.

6. The number of children fed through county government partnerships was 276,000.

7. Dishi na County, which is a significant part of the F4E, fed 215,000 children across 210 schools.

8. The sources of funding for the program were as shown below, with grant revenue accounting for 61% of total revenue, and parent revenue totaling 14% of the total. The government contributed less than a quarter at 24%.

Based on these data from Food 4 Education and the other school feeding program, it is evident that the government has not met its promise of feeding 8 million children in primary and ECDs. Additionally, the conditional grants promised to county governments for school feeding programs were never availed.

Conclusion

Food 4 Education reports that school feeding programs are actually quite effective and often lead to better education outcomes for the students. For example, it notes that there was a 20% increase in academic performance among students enrolled in its meals program. School attendance was also seen to increase by 8-10%. However, while parents and non-governmental institutions pull their weight towards increasing the coverage of school meals, the government cut the budget for these programs between 2023 and 2025, which consequently led to a reduced number of students enrolled in school feeding programs. The president, therefore, did not achieve his promise to double the budget for the program and feed 4 million children. The president has also gone against his initial promise of providing counties with conditional grants to implement the school meals program. The government’s partnership with Nairobi County was funded by both levels of government, with no such initiative extended to other counties through the allocation of conditional grants. As a result, the governments' promise to feed 8 million children in primary and ECDs has fallen flat, with millions of children suffering from the failure. Current initiatives to keep the school meals program alive are being led by the Food 4 Education, whose work you can support and donate to here.

Our Verdict

The Kenya Kwanza manifesto and the UDA administration led by President Ruto set out an ambitious plan to double the budget for the school meals program and feed 4 million children. The government has, however, failed to meet these goals, with only 2.65 million children enrolling in the school meals program as of 2024. The budget for the program saw massive cuts and is currently at KSh 3 billion, down from KSh 4.93 billion in 2023, which is less than double what was promised. Additionally, Ruto has failed to feed the 8 million children he promised through conditional grants for meals programs extended to county governments. The Food 4 Education program, where such initiatives have been implemented, has only managed to feed 576,000 children, with only 276,000 fed with the support of county governments. The future of the school meals program is not only in jeopardy, following budget cuts, but also risks being left to parents and NGOs to implement, as is seen in other important sectors such as health, where HIV, TB, and Malaria financing is left to donors.

This is the first installment in a series evaluating whether President Ruto’s government is making any progress towards meeting the promises it made to the people of Kenya in 2022 through its manifesto. Even though the Kenya Kwanza manifesto promised much, our aim is to remain objective and highlight only those promises that are measurable and verifiable through independent data and facts. For example, the promise to increase domestic rice production from 18% to 40% is objective and verifiable, therefore, subject to our assessment. However, a promise such as “strengthen Jua Kali industry capacity to produce high quality construction productions” is not objective, and thus not verifiable through independent assessment. We will run this exercise through 2027, during which we will declare whether President Ruto has achieved or failed in his manifesto.

If you wish to participate in this project, there are two ways to do so. Support us via a donation to paybill number 880100 and account number 190200. You can also participate by conducting independent research and contributing to this project HERE.

President Ruto’s Affordable Housing Vision

President Ruto came into office with the promise to make affordable housing a reality. In the process, he made a series of promises and commitments, including:

1. Increasing the supply of new housing to 250,000 per annum, and the supply of affordable housing from 2% to 50%.

2. Grow the number of mortgages from 30,000 to 1,000,000 by enabling low-cost mortgages of Sh 10,000 and below.1

3. President Ruto, therefore, committed KSh 250 billion for FY 2022/2023 - FY 2026/2027, of which the budget commitment would be KSh 50 billion, with KSh 200 billion to be financed by pension funds.

In this article, we’ll evaluate his commitment to mortgages, assess the progress made, and determine whether it’s possible to meet this goal by 2027.

How Many Mortgages Does Kenya Have?

In his manifesto, President Ruto promised to grow the number of mortgages from 30,000 to 1,000,000. However, from the available data, we see very little progress made towards this promise.

In December 2022, immediately after President Ruto took office, Kenya had 27,786 mortgages.

However, as the 2024 data show, no progress has been made towards this goal. The total number of mortgages two years after Ruto got into office was 30,016. This represents an increase of 2,230 new mortgages in two years.

With less than 1.5 years to the election, it seems unlikely that this administration will deliver 1,000,000 mortgages. Our verdict on this promise, as of February 2026, is a FAIL.

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President Ruto has not enabled low-cost mortgages of Ksh 10,000 and below

President Ruto also promised that upon election, he would enable low-cost mortgages with monthly repayments of less than KSh 10,000. However, as of December 2024, mortgages in Kenya remain expensive, with monthly repayments averaging hundreds of thousands of shillings.

Here are a few quick facts:

1. As of December 2024, the average mortgage loan size was KSh 9 million.

2. During the same period, the average interest rate for these loans was 14.9%, ranging from 8.2% to 20.4%.

3. The average loan maturity was 11.1 years, ranging from 5.3 to 18 years.

With these data in mind, the average monthly mortgage payments for Kenyans were above KSh 100,000.

We can confirm these figures using current data from Kenya’s top banks, assuming an average loan size of KSh 9 million, a maturity of 11 years, and each bank's current interest rate. We find monthly mortgage repayments of KSh 140,000 to KSh 155,000.

Link to the calculator:2

Results for KCB, Absa, and Equity Bank.

These findings therefore suggest that mortgages remain expensive, with no government effort to enable low-cost mortgages with monthly payments below KSh 10,000.

Is this Promise Achievable?

Increasing the number of low-cost mortgages is part of Kenya Kwanza’s goal towards increasing the supply of affordable housing for low-income groups. As a result, mortgages shouldn’t be viewed in isolation; rather, they are part of a larger plan whose progress can be seen once people have settled into the numerous affordable projects being constructed across the country.

This goal could therefore be achieved if the government constructs more than 1 million affordable houses with monthly payments of less than KSh 10,000. A million affordable houses with a million tenants each paying less than KSh 10,000 in rent would directly translate to a million mortgages.

As of February 4th, 2026, the Boma Yangu website highlights that affordable housing has attracted 1,102,012 applicants, who would render the project a success if each were allocated a house and had monthly payments of less than KSh 10,000 upon completion.3

There are, however, certain constraints that would inhibit the government from achieving this success. These include:

1. To achieve 1,000,000 affordable houses, the government planned to construct 250,000 houses annually from 2022. As of February 2026, the Boma Yangu website highlights several ongoing projects, with only a few completed, totaling 128.

2. Since most projects are ongoing, a year and a half before the election, it is highly unlikely that the government has met its target of supplying 250,000 low-cost houses annually. As a result, it is also highly unlikely we are on course to 1,000,000 affordable houses by 2027.

Our Verdict

Our verdict as of February 2026 - which is subject to change as soon as new data is made available is as follows:

The Kenya Kwanza manifesto and the UDA administration led by President Ruto set out an ambitious plan to increase the number of low-cost mortgages in Kenya. The government has, however, failed to meet these goals, with monthly mortgage payments remaining high, and total mortgages in the country remaining largely as they were in 2022.

This article, therefore, describes Relative Age Effects and examines whether they affect students' academic performance in Kenyan schools. If such effects exist, then it’s also worth pondering whether it's fair to have students of different age groups sitting the same tests, especially for life-defining exams such as KJSEA and KCSE.

Kenyan Schools Have an Overage Crisis

Given that age differences are an issue, many researchers have focused on differences spanning months rather than years. For instance, the official school-going age in Kenya is 4 years. However, because we do not have a monthly cut-off point for school entry, it’s common for a child who turns 4 in January to join the same class as a student who turns 4 in March, or even in August.

In these cases, the children who join school later will be 3 years old in January when school starts and will only turn 4 later in the year. This creates a situation where the student who was 4 in January is older than his classmates.

In Kenya, however, it is much more common for students to be several years older than their classmates. This creates an interesting situation where some students are extremely young, while their classmates are extremely old.

In 2025, for example, we see that among students who sat the junior school exam KJSEA, 35,270 were aged 13 and below, and 642,620 were aged 14 and 15. Still, 415,059 were 16 or 17 years old, and 37,638 were 18 years old or older.

Junior school lasts for three years, with students expected to join at age 12 and complete at age 14. Since KJSEA is the exam students take in their last year of junior school, we expect most students to be 14 years old. Additionally, since we know that students several months apart in age will end up in the same class due to the lack of a defined monthly entry cut-off point, the 14- and 15-year-old age group represents the appropriate age range for KJSEA students.

This leaves us with the 35,270 students who were too young to be in the class, and 452,697 students who were too old to be in the class. Overall, 40% of the students who sat the KJSEA exam in 2025 were overage.

We see the same trend with KCSE, where age differences between students span years rather than months. Typically, students need to be between 17 and 18 when completing Kenyan high school. However, in 2025, the youngest were 16 or younger, while the oldest were 22 or older.

In high school, 50.1% of the students were overage.

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Do Age Differences Matter for Academic Performance?

There’s evidence that age differences affect academic performance among school-going pupils. For instance;

• This study finds that relative age effects influence academic performance through eighth grade, even though the effect weakens over time.

• This Scottish study found that “Reading ability at age 9 and arithmetic ability at age 11 varied by season of birth, with lowest scores among those born in autumn or early winter (September–December) and highest scores among those born in later winter or spring (February–April). The study concludes that the differences in intelligence among pupils at this age could be explained by age at school entry relative to peers.

• In Turkey, this study examines the influence of relative age effects on TIMSS scores, noting that “the youngest children born just before the cut-off date have the worst performance.”

In most of these studies, it is evident that younger students tend to perform worse than their older counterparts. However, this depends on whether the age differences span a few months or years, as is the case in Kenya. In the latter, extremely older students tend to perform poorly compared to their counterparts who are either age-appropriate for the class or younger.

In the Scottish study, younger students performed poorly than older ones, even though the difference was a few months. The same is true of the Turkish study, where the age differences were within several months of the school entry cut-off point. Other studies confirm this. For instance:

• Even though younger students had higher high school completion rates, they performed worse academically than the older students.

• This other study notes that relatively younger students score lower than older students.

• This other study notes that “relatively older students score higher than relatively younger students in cognitive and non-cognitive skills.”

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In Kenya, Age-appropriate Older Kids Perform Better than Younger Kids

Using Kenyan data, we can confirm that it’s indeed true, younger students perform worse than their older counterparts.

As previously noted, students sitting KJSEA are supposed to be 14. However, as we see in other countries, some students may be older depending on their birth month, meaning they'll be 15, while their counterparts are still 14. Even without granular data beyond these KNEC aggregates, we can still see that younger students perform relatively worse than older students.

For instance, in 2025 KJSEA, 82.6% of 14 and 15-year-olds scored a grade of “meeting expectations” in Science compared to those aged 13 and younger (80.4%).

In English, 57.1% of 14 and 15-year-olds scored a meeting expectations grade, compared to 45.5% of those aged 13 and younger.

In Math, 40.2% of the older age group met expectations, compared to 31.8% in the younger age group.

If we had more granular data, we could test this hypothesis among 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds to determine whether a relative-age difference spanning months indeed affects academic performance.

But the Relative Age Difference in Kenya Spans Years, with Overage Pupils Performing Worse than All Other Students

The literature, and our analysis above, is full of studies that evaluate relative age differences spanning only a few months. What is unique about Kenya, though, is that students are more likely to be several years older than their counterparts.

This is a very important issue because large age differences among pupils cloud our understanding of their academic performance. For example, interpreting the results of international exams such as SACMEQ, TIMSS, and PISA is almost impossible if students aren’t sitting exams at the same age. In most instances, an exam sat by grade 4 students in the West is sat by grade 6 students in Africa. Additionally, as we’ve seen, even if the exam were sat by grade 4 students in Africa, the massive age differences in that class would make the exam inappropriate unless the students are sorted by age.

In Kenya, this effect is evident, with older students performing worse than their counterparts. In the chart below, we see that although underage pupils scored poorly compared to age-appropriate 14- and 15-year-olds, older students aged 16 and above performed even worse.

In science, only 70.3% of 16- and 17-year-olds and 42.2% of those aged 18 and above attained a grade of meeting expectations, compared to 82.6% of age-appropriate students.

In English, 36% of 16- and 17-year-olds and 17.7% of students aged 18 and above scored at the meeting expectations level, compared to 57.1% of age-appropriate students.

In Math, older students performed poorly, with 15.1% of those aged 18 and above and 24% of those aged 16 and 17 meeting expectations. This was lower than the 40.2% of those aged 14 and 15, who scored meeting expectations.

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Which Counties Have Older Students?

As a bonus to this discussion, here’s data showing the prevalence of over-age students by county. Counties at the top have more age-appropriate students than those at the bottom.

Is it Fair to Have Students of Different Ages Sit the Same Exam?

KCSE and KJSEA are life-defining examinations, so before we take them seriously, we need to level the playing field. This means eradicating any superficial factors, within our control, that may affect academic performance.

In most instances, differences in intelligence alone affect academic performance. However, factors such as age may influence a child’s maturity, temperament, and conscientiousness. For example, this study reports that older students tend to have lower motivation, higher repetition, and higher dropout rates. In other instances, we’ve also seen that younger students may perform poorly than their age-appropriate counterparts.

As a result, giving each one of these groups equal chances in these life-defining exams may be misleading, leading to unfair advantages. One may ask, for example, whether a 22-year-old who scores an A in the KCSE has an A similar to that of a 17-year-old? Another may ask, should a 19-year-old who scores a C+ be given direct university admission, or should we give some concessions to 16- and 17-year-olds with Cs?

Regardless of what your answers to these questions may be, it seems relevant that the Ministry of Education should strictly enforce the school entry age, ensuring underage students don’t get into the system earlier than their counterparts, while also making sure that children who are older are appropriately matched with their peers. Failure to enforce this means we have to contend with Relative Age Effects, which lead to lower performance among underage and overage pupils.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve seen that relative age effects may indeed affect students' academic performance. This phenomenon is true in Kenya as in other countries. Overall, younger students perform poorer than their age-appropriate counterparts. Additionally, we also see that in Kenya, overage pupils perform worse than their age-appropriate peers.

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However, while these debates make for interesting political debate, a survey by Afrobarometer shows that the average Kenyan is firmly pro-democracy, vehemently rejecting alternative systems such as one-man rule, military rule, or a single-party system.

Most Kenyans Openly Support a Democratic Governance System

As part of its round 10 survey in 2024, Afrobarometer asked Kenyans which among the three statements below was closest to their opinions:

1. Statement 1: Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government.

2. Statement 2: In some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable.

3. Statement 3: For someone like me, it doesn’t matter what kind of government we have.

Interestingly, 74% of respondents stated that democracy was preferable to any other form of government. Only 14% of the respondents said a non-democratic government was preferable to them. 9% were nonchalant, for it didn’t matter to them what kind of government we had.

People's trust in democracy is largely a positive sign, given its relationship with long-run economic growth. A 2023 study, for instance, evaluated the relationship between democracy and GDP per capita from 1789 and 2019. It found that “in the long run, democracy has a positive average effect on GDP per capita of around 17% .” In a different study, a country’s democratization increased GDP per capita by about 20% in the long run.

The Wins of Multipartyism

Multipartyism was reintroduced in Kenya in 1991, with the country conducting its first multiparty elections in 1992. Since then, Kenya has held multiple elections contested by multiple parties, a move that further strengthens our democracy.

Since one-party rule is still within living memory, most Kenyans surveyed by Afrobarometer disapproved of the statement that only one party should be allowed to stand for election and hold office.

Of all respondents, 62% strongly disapproved of the statement, while 20% disapproved. Only 16% felt that we needed a one-party system.

What About One Man Rule?

A consequence of removing term limits is the return of dictatorships or one-man rule. According to the Afrobarometer survey, Kenyans seem weary of the 14-year Kenyatta rule and the 24-year Moi Rule. As a result, most respondents expressed displeasure with a one-man rule.

Kenya affirmed its support for key democratic processes, such as elections and parliament, by overwhelmingly rejecting the premise that elections and parliament should be abolished so the president can decide everything. Of the respondents, 70% strongly disapproved of the statement, while only 7% approved.

These findings suggest that any attempt to remove term limits or to abolish key democratic institutions and processes, such as elections, is likely to be rejected by the people. In 2024, The Star reported that the Senate had received “more than 121,000 written memoranda from Kenyans rejecting a Bill seeking to extend the term limits for the president and other elected leaders.”

Indeed, the Afrobarometer survey supports this sentiment, with 86% of Kenyan’s agreeing that the constitution should limit the president to serving a maximum of two terms in office. Only 13% thought the two-term limit should not be mandated by the Constitution.

Military Rule Remains Unpopular Among Kenyans

At the height of the Gen Z anti-finance bill demonstrations, President Ruto’s government deployed the military onto the streets. This move, according to the late Prime Minister Raila Odinga, was a grave mistake that risked pushing the country towards military rule.

Kenya has yet to experience military rule. However, previous military deployments, such as during the Shifta War, the Wagalla Massacre, and the Mount Elgon Insurgency that gave rise to the Sabaot Land Defense Forces, have raised questions about the quality of military leadership and its poor human rights record.

The Afrobarometer survey therefore found that 58% of Kenyan respondents strongly disapproved of military rule, while only 17% approved of it.

Conclusion

Findings from the Afrobarometer survey provide supporting evidence that Kenyans prefer democracy over other forms of government. Additionally, the findings show that Kenyans strongly oppose any form of dictatorships, including one-man rule and military rule. Many respondents also expressed the view that the constitution should continue to mandate a two-term limit as a safeguard of constitutionalism and democracy.

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How bad was it?

Kenyans today have a life expectancy of about 62 years, which, as you can see from the chart below, is at par with the country’s life expectancy in the 1980s. This suggests that as other countries made significant strides in life expectancy, Kenya stagnated, declining between 1987 and the late 1990s. The reason for this fall in life expectancies is AIDS, which wreaked havoc in Kenya throughout the 90s and early 2000s.

Noteworthy from the chart is that COVID-19 had a global impact on life expectancies, with declines around 2020. However, when we compare with what we see in the 90s in Kenya, we see that the HIV pandemic lasted longer and was more lethal.

For many years, AIDS has been a leading cause of death in Kenya, disproportionately killing more people than all other diseases combined. At the height of the HIV pandemic, we lost hundreds of thousands of Kenyans annually. In 2003, HIV/AIDS killed 133,000 Kenyans. In the decade between 1997 and 2007, the total number of Kenyans who had died of AIDS was estimated at 1.3 million.

Things have changed, and fewer Kenyans today die of AIDS

It’s evident from the chart above that fewer than 40,000 Kenyans died of HIV/AIDS in 2021. The number of deaths, however, may vary by source. For instance, figures from the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC) show AIDS deaths in Kenya at 21,009 in 2025.

In 2021, the IMHE Global Burden of Disease ranked AIDS as the third leading cause of death in Kenya, behind COVID-19 and cardiovascular diseases. After more than two decades now, AIDS is no longer the top killer.

These achievements resulted from deliberate efforts to improve Antiretroviral coverage in Kenya, reduce stigma, and create awareness. PEPFAR and the Global Fund's efforts were never in vain. Starting in 2003, we see a reduction in AIDS-related deaths as antiretroviral (ART) coverage increased.

Where we are now

Even though fewer people today die of AIDS, it does not mean the fight is over. In fact, there’s still more to be done. Here is what you need to know about HIV in Kenya today:

• The total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya today is 1.3 million, consisting of 1.26 million adults and 62,881 children.

• The percentage of people living with HIV has reduced by half since 2013, dropping from 6.04% to 3.03%.

• The total number of AIDS related deaths in 2025 was 21,009, consisting of 2,688 children and 18,321 adults. The number of deaths, however, has been declining in the past decade for both children and adults.

• Note that the number of AIDS deaths increased between 2023 and 2025. The reasons are unclear; however, it is worth looking into whether the recent scaling down of PEPFAR and USAID cuts had any effect.

• The total number of new HIV infections in 2025 was 20,105.

Who funds the fight against HIV/AIDS in Kenya?

The fight against HIV/AIDS in Kenya was led mainly by external donors, specifically PEPFAR and the Global Fund.

Since its introduction in 2003, PEPFAR has saved millions by procuring life-saving medications for needy countries. In the 2022/2023 financial year, it committed $73 million in Kenya, while the Global Fund donated $47.8 million. The Government of Kenya and the Ministry of Health committed $10.5 million to the fight against AIDS in that year.

Antiretroviral medicines led to declines in AIDS deaths in the last two and a half decades. However, these medicines are funded by the Global Fund (largely funded by the USAID) and PEPFAR.

In 2022, PEPFAR donated $44.2 million to purchase ARTs, while an additional $38.7 million came from the Global Fund and $18.2 million from Counterpart Financing. The Government of Kenya contributed $0.

PEPFAR and the Global Fund are scaling down and may never come back following Trump’s executive orders

The largest donor to the Global Fund is USAID, which was shut down by the Trump administration pending review. Similarly, PEPFAR was reauthorized for operations in March 2024, lasting for a year until March 2025, pending re-evaluation by the U.S Congress. Ultimately, the program may undergo significant reforms or be scaled down.

What we know currently is that the funding gap in Kenya has been widening at an alarming pace, curtailing intervention measures and putting people living with HIV at risk. In 2022, Kenya had a funding gap of $98.6 million.

The Government of Kenya needs to step up.

As foreign donors withdraw, it’s up to the Kenyan government and the Ministry of Health to consolidate efforts and fill the gaps that PEPFAR and the Global Fund will leave behind. Knowing how far we’ve come, mistakes made in the 80s and 90s cannot be allowed to repeat. We have to be willing to commit resources to our public health systems, increase monitoring and testing, and provide everyone living with HIV access to ARTs. Increasing access to other preventative drugs, such as PreP and PEP, is also essential.

Additional Data

Our website provides additional data on HIV/AIDS in Kenya, including breakdowns by county and gender. The official government statistics on HIV/AIDS in Kenya can be found on the NSDCC portal.

Read more about Kenya’s life expectancy here:

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This is good for food security since surpluses reduce imports, shielding us from geopolitical shocks and external price fluctuations.

We already have evidence of declining imports following these periods of increased surplus. Last year, we imported 214,067 tons of maize, down from 488,535 tons and 762,150 tons in 2023 and 2022, respectively. The chart below shows maize production and consumption since 2017.

Interestingly, the chart above shows that even as maize imports reduced, both consumption and production of maize also declined. It is unclear why that would be the case, but one reason would be that some Kenyans stopped eating maize or did not eat the exact quantities as before.

We can prove whether Kenyans are reducing the amount of maize they eat by looking at calorie shares from cereals, roots, and tubers. The chart below shows that the proportion of calories Kenyans derived from grains, tubers, and roots declined from 59% in 2016 to 51% in 2021. Ideally, this covers the whole range of cereals, including wheat and rice, and tubers such as cassava and arrow roots.

A lower calorie share from cereals, roots, and tubers is generally good since it shows increasing food diversity and incomes. However, we cannot tell what is replacing these foods until we look at all other forms of consumption.

Wheat and Rice Consumption have been increasing.

Although wheat and rice are cereals, we have evidence that Kenyans are increasingly consuming them, even as maize consumption plummets. The chart below shows this dynamic playing out with maize consumption dropping from 3.3 million to 2.7 million tons.

On the other hand, wheat consumption increased from 2.19 million tons to 2.25 million tons, and rice consumption increased from 1.67 million tons to 1.79 million tons.

Increasing rice and wheat consumption is a probable sign of substitution. As maize consumption drops, we may see more Kenyans eating chapatis, mandazis, bread, and other baked goods. Moreover, the sharp increase in rice consumption between 2021 and 2024 is a sure sign that a larger portion of this substitution is being taken by rice, with only a small portion going to wheat.

A serious challenge to food security

Substituting maize for wheat and rice will likely cause serious food security issues. With maize, we produce more than we consume, necessitating fewer imports. On the other hand, Kenya imports 80.4% of the wheat it consumes and 35.2% of the rice it consumes.

These data tell us that policymakers need to focus on wheat and rice production, finding ways to increase farmers’ yields while opening up these sectors for additional investments. The alternative is that we remain susceptible to geopolitical shocks such as those caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, which led to significant disruptions in cereals accessibility worldwide.

The graphic below shows the Russian-Ukrainian war's impact on global exports and production.1 Low-income countries like Kenya were some of the most impacted. We suffered higher prices, increased hunger, a possible increase in refugees coming to Kenya, currency instabilities (between 2022 and 2023), and increased debt as the government looked to subsidize consumption.

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A recent Agriculture and Food Authority report showed that Kenyan maize consumption remained lower than production for a second year. In 2024, Kenyans consumed 2.7 million tons of maize and produced 4 million tons.

Historically, as we see from the chart above, Kenyans have always consumed more maize than they produced. This often prompted maize imports to meet the deficit. However, in 2024, Kenya had a 1.3 million tons of maize surplus.

Total maize imports in 2024 were 214,067 tons, significantly declining from 488,535 tons in 2023.

You can read more about maize production in Kenya from our website, where we provide some key statistics, including:

1. Total production

2. Total imports

3. Total area under maize

4. Average farmgate and wholesale prices

5. Production, value, and area under maize by county

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Note that we measure inflation using the Consumer Price Index, which tells us the average price level of goods and services that consumers purchase. Inflation is the percentage change in the CPI between two periods.

Kenya’s CPI for August 2025 was 146.21, meaning prices were 46.2% higher than in 2019 when the CPI was rebased. Like inflation, we continue to see a consistent upward trend in the CPI.

Our websites provide more information about inflation and CPI rates in Kenya, including core and non-core inflation rates for August 2025. We also offer more details on how the CPI was rebased in 2019 and what is included in a typical basket of goods in Kenya. Read more here:

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After Swahili, we have Kikuyu at 12.7%, Luyia at 9.4%, Kalenjin at 8.7%, and Luo at 7.8%.1 Afrobarometer did not capture all languages, other than those in the chart below, raising key concerns from people whose languages were “othered.”2

The survey also had interesting findings on the most common languages spoken in the counties. In Nairobi, English trails Kiswahili and is spoken by 15.2% of the population.

In Mombasa, Swahili dominates and is spoken by 79.5% of the population. This could be attributed to the fact that Mombasa has a sizeable number of people from the Swahili tribe and also because the coastal regions of Kenya and Tanzania predominantly speak Swahili. Mijikenda is spoken by 8.7% of the people.

Nakuru is dominated by Swahili, Kikuyu, and Kalenjin speakers. Swahili leads with 37.8% of the residents speaking the language, followed by Kikuyu at 27%, and Kalenjin at 22.2%.

The most spoken language in Kisumu is Luo, an interesting difference from what we’ve seen in other major cities. In the county, 72.3% spoke Luo, and only 25.6% spoke Swahili.

What is “the most common language spoken” really?

So far, we’ve been using the phrase” language X or Y is the most common language spoken in Kenya or county A. This phrasing comes directly from Language Global, a non-profit working to make information on languages accessible.

This phrasing appears confusing to many, considering that a majority, if not all, Kenyans can actually speak Swahili. In fact, Swahili is the national language, and both Swahili and English are official languages. We, therefore, expect that these languages will be spoken by a majority of Kenyans and not a mere 27.5%.

An important distinction to make is that “the most common language,” in this case, refers to the primary language spoken at home. This clears things up a little bit by differentiating between knowing how to speak a specific language and using that language for everyday conversation at home.

But are these results valid?

Language Global notes that these data from the Afrobarometer Survey had a reliability score of 62.73, which is quite low by any survey standard. Additionally, the Humanitarian Data Exchange notes that “representative survey, but less than 95% confidence level and/or greater than a 10% margin of error.” In simple terms, these caveats suggest that we should interpret these data with caution and that, to a certain degree, these data may not be useful.

We dug deeper to find out why this would be the case, and a few issues emerged. For instance, since the phrase “most common language spoken” seems confusing, we were interested in the actual survey question, which is shown below.

The survey question was, “What is the primary language you speak in your home?” A list of common languages was provided, with smaller ones “othered.”

The question, therefore, raises some key issues, including:

1. What does primary language in a multiethnic country like Kenya mean? Even though the question specifies “the language you speak in your home,” many respondents speak many languages at home, and it may not be clear whether a “primary language” is the mother tongue or Swahili, which is the national language.,

2. It is also unclear whether primary language refers to the language spoken the most hours or whether primary language is that which reflects the respondent’s ethnic identity. A Luhya respondent may be torn as to whether the question is asking about their Luhya identity or the number of times they speak Luhya.

3. Many respondents may have interpreted the question to mean “what is your mother tongue”, especially when you consider “home” in this case could mean rural home.

4. For respondents whose languages were not listed in the survey question, many may have defaulted to English or Swahili.

5. In the table above, we also see other category errors, such as the lumping together of Meru and Embu, and Maasai and Samburu.

6. Social desirability bias may also have played a role, with some households choosing English or Swahili for their prestige.

These different interpretations of the survey question may explain the confusion we saw after we posted this data on X, and many felt it missed something.

What could have been done better?

Afrobarometer surveyed 2,400 Kenyan citizens aged 18 and above, yielding a 2% margin of error at a 95% confidence interval. This means we can have confidence that the survey results were credible.

However, as we’ve seen, the data on languages was not reliable. We could attribute this outcome to the difficulties of studying language and ethnicity. The sociolinguistic context in Kenya is quite complex and cannot be captured easily, unless one is willing to spend more time on the language question.

Assuming we were to focus only on the language question, we’d have enough space and time to dwell into the complexities of language. For example, we can disaggregate the phrase “primary language” into several different questions, such as:

1. What is the most spoken language at home with your family?

2. What is the most spoken language outside the home (market, work, etc)?

3. What is your mother tongue?

4. What language do you read or write best in?

With additional refining, these questions would capture different aspects and nuances of language and could paint a bigger picture of a country's language landscape.

Additionally, instead of having respondents list a single primary language, one could ask them to rank languages that they speak often, from the most spoken to the least spoken. Such a question would not only tell us how many Kenyans speak multiple languages, but also the extent to which they speak those languages.

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The increase in mobile phone ownership marks an essential milestone in Kenya’s digitization journey. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), “mobile phones are the most common gateway to the internet,” and may give us a snapshot of internet penetration in that country.

However, the relationship is imperfect since not all phones can access the Internet.

Global mobile phone ownership and how Kenya compares

The International Telecommunications Union observes that high-income countries have universal ownership, with more than 95% of the population in those countries owning a phone.

In contrast, 80% of the world's population owned a mobile phone in 2024, and 66% of Africans owned a mobile phone.

Does this mean Kenya’s 53.7% ownership rate underperforms the African and world averages? To some extent, these two datasets are incomparable.

The Kenya Housing Survey and the International Telecommunications Union do not use the same methodology. In Kenya, KHS statistics examined mobile phone ownership among everyone above three years old. On the other hand, the ITU examines everyone above 10 years old. As a result, the Kenyan average is weighed down by the inclusion of children below 10 years.

The chart below shows a breakdown of mobile phone ownership in Kenya among those aged 10 years and above. Mobile phone ownership is lowest among children aged 10 - 14, then increases steeply to 54.3% of individuals aged 15 - 24, and reaches 89% between the ages of 25 and 54. Mobile ownership starts to decline among individuals aged 65 years and above.

Based on these data, we can tabulate the percentage of individuals who owned mobile phones in Kenya and were ten years or older as 65.5%, closer to the African average of 66% but lower than the world average of 80%.

Mobile phone ownership and internet use in Kenya

In Kenya, more people own mobile phones than use the Internet. This could be attributed to the fact that most people have no access to or cannot afford the mobile data or WIFI needed to access the Internet. Additionally, some Kenyans only use phones for calls, text messages, or mobile money.

Recent data from the Kenya Housing Survey found that only 35% of Kenyans aged three years and above had used the internet. There were also massive differences in usage between men and women.

However, high-income countries worldwide have higher rates of mobile ownership and internet usage. In 2024, 91% of individuals in Europe had used the internet, 92% in the CIS, and 87% in the Americas. There are no significant differences between mobile ownership and internet usage in these countries.

However, in Africa, just like in Kenya, the percentage of individuals using the internet is significantly lower than the proportion of individuals who own a mobile phone. For instance, only 38% of Africans had used the internet, even though 66% owned a mobile phone.

You can read more about mobile phone ownership in Kenya on our website, where we provide a comprehensive analysis by age, sex, area of residence, education levels, marital status, disability domains, and counties.

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Luckily, Dire Dika Bilala, in a paper titled “Devolution at 10 Years: Achievements and Opportunities for Kenya,” already did that for us. Through his work, we can see the outcomes of devolution after ten years. We now know which counties did well and on what metrics. For those who continue to face poor outcomes in specific metrics, Bilala came up with key recommendations.

However, while the attempt to measure the outcomes of devolution is a welcome move, at Stats Kenya, we raise several concerns regarding the robustness of the methodology used, more specifically, the choice of variables required to measure devolution.

Drawing from the objects of devolution outlined in Article 174 of the Constitution of Kenya, Bilala uses available data sources to measure those objects. Some of those variables appear well aligned and relevant to the objects of devolution. However, we also submit that some of them aren’t particularly well aligned or even relevant. This key disjunction between the objectives of devolution and what is being measured, to a certain extent, undermines Bilala’s findings.

Measuring the Objects of Devolution

The graphic below lists all nine objects of devolution. Ideally, this is what the writers of the Constitution envisioned to be the goals of devolution. As a result, it seems particularly obvious that the outcomes of devolution ought to be measured against these goals. That is precisely what Bilala does. Under each object of devolution, listed in bullet points, are the variables that Bilala uses as a measurement of each objective of devolution. We have several key concerns:

First, the language used in the Constitution is not scientifically operational, meaning that it is not measurable. For instance, the first object of devolution is “to promote democratic and accountable exercise of power.” It neither states how the objective can be achieved nor what specific outcomes are expected. Regardless, we know that this objective requires indicators that measure democratic and accountable exercise of power by the counties. Is there any such metric that we can use to measure such an outcome?

Bilala measures the first objective using voter turnout in general elections and compliance with public procurement legal frameworks. While voter turnout is relevant to democracy, it isn’t particularly suited because it can be influenced by factors unrelated to devolution. The ethnicity of presidential candidates directly influences voter turnout in Kenya. Similarly, the government may use repressive tactics to influence voter turnout.

Second, looking at the objectives of devolution and the proposed measurements, it is clear that some of the measurements are not relevant. For example, it is unclear whether adult literacy rates, non-poverty incidences and stunting are relevant measures of the objective “to recognize the rights of communities to manage their own affairs and to further their development.”

For objective 08, health and agricultural budgets don’t seem like appropriate measures of decentralization of state organs and their functions. In objective 07, the primary net-enrollment rate and the attendance by skilled health personnel do not particularly measure equitable sharing of national and local resources. In objective 05, household access to the internet and electricity doesn’t appear to have any relationship with the rights and interests of minorities and marginalized communities.

Third, some of the indicators used to measure the objects of devolution overlap with key functions of the national government, making the resulting measurement unreliable. For instance, Bilala uses the share of paved roads as a measure of socio-economic development in the counties, knowing very well that a significant share of paved roads in the country existed before devolution, and that most roads are not under the county government. As a result, measuring devolution requires variables that explicitly highlight county government duties since it would be unfair to measure devolution using a metric directly influenced by national government investments, or one that doesn’t discriminate between pre-devolution investments, such as roads paved before devolution. The same is true of variables such as electricity and internet access, which are currently influenced by national government investments such as the Last Mile program.

Fourth, in light of the previous point, accurately measuring devolution would require us to narrow down to the actual functions delegated to the counties. The Fourth Schedule of the Kenyan Constitution lays out the functions of the County Governments across various fields and industries. It, therefore, makes sense that most of our measurements should arise directly from these functions, especially for health, agriculture, disaster management, cultural activities, county public works, environmental conservation, pre-primary education, animal control, county planning, etc. Otherwise, we risk evaluating devolution using metrics that are outside the mandate of the counties. For instance, given that education is a national government function, using the primary net-enrolment rate as a measure of devolution is mistaken.

Fifth, Bilala weighs all his variables equally, even though we can now tell that some variables are stronger measures of devolution than others. As a result, these variables needed to have been weighted differently, or sifted down to only a handful that we are sure actually measure devolution.

To sum up, Bilala points us in a good direction regarding the importance of measuring the outcomes of devolution. Otherwise, we would tumble blindly without knowing where we are headed and what outcomes to expect. Looking at his analysis, however, we find that there are still lingering measurement problems that ought to be looked at. Key issues include the failure to find relevant measurements for devolution and a poor application of some key measures. As a result, we end up with findings that may have a low signal-to-noise ratio, making them unreliable.