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5 Kenya
5.1 Background and Government
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Kenya is a country in Eastern Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia
to the east, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest,
with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border 59 .
Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo Kenyatta led Kenya from independence
in 1963 until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi
took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state
from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made
itself the sole legal party in Kenya. Moi acceded to internal and external pressure for
political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge
KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence
and fraud, but were viewed as having generally refl ected the will of the Kenyan
people. President Moi stepped down in December 2002 following fair and peaceful
elections. Mwai Kibaki running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition
group, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), defeated KANU candidate Uhuru
Kenyatta and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption
platform. Kibaki’s NARC coalition splintered in 2005 over the constitutional
review process. Government defectors joined with KANU to form a new opposition
coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement, which defeated the government’s draft
constitution in a popular referendum in November 2005. Kibaki’s reelection in December
2007 brought charges of vote rigging from ODM candidate Raila Odinga and
unleashed two months of violence in which as many as 1,500 people died. UN-sponsored
talks in late February produced a power sharing accord bringing Odinga into the
government in the restored position of prime minister.
Kenya is divided into seven provinces: Coast, Northeastern, Eastern, Central, Rift
Valley, Nyanza, and Western. These are subdivided into 63 districts, each headed by a
presidentially appointed commissioner; provincial administration is closely supervised
by the central government. There are two types of upper local authorities (municipalities
and county councils) and four types of lower authorities (urban councils, township
authorities, area councils, and local councils). The Nairobi area is separate and has special
status. The Nairobi area, administered by a city council, is the direct responsibility
of the central government. Many of the councils raise their own revenues by taxes,
construct and maintain roads, carry out public health schemes, construct and improve
housing, support education, and provide agricultural and social welfare services 60 .
5.2 Geography and Demography
Kenya has a total land area of 580,367 sq km and a population of 39,002,772. It has a
youthful population comprising the following:
� 0-14 years: 42.3% (male 8,300,393/female 8,181,898)
� 15-64 years: 55.1% (male 10,784,119/female 10,702,999)
� 65 years and over: 2.6% (male 470,218/female 563,145) (2010 est.)
59 http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/countries/article.asp?parentid=96749
60 http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Kenya-LOCAL-GOVERNMENT.html