Community Organizations/Non –State Actors

Co-operative Societies

The co-operative movement in the county is well established with societies covering several sectors. The county has 254 active co-operatives societies and 22 dormant ones. The total membership is 258,198 and the annual turnover is approximately KShs. 5,069,560,000. Types of co-operatives found in the county include dairy co-operatives, coffee co-operatives, transport SACCOs and housing SACCOs among others. The marketing co-operatives are engaged in production, processing and marketing of members‘ produce. The savings and credit co-operative societies give loans to members at affordable interest rates.

Human Development Index

One of the main objectives under the Kenya‘s economic blue print, Vision 2030, is to provide a high quality of life for all Kenyans. Various human development indices will be applied to measure the broad level of social economic wellbeing. These indices uses three basic dimensions namely education, health and income.

The HDI emphasizes that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country and not economic growth alone since two countries/regions with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with such different human development outcomes.

The Constitution of Kenya, 2010 in Article 27 recognizes that measures should be put in place to encourage affirmative action programmes and policies to address past inequalities. Economic and social rights to all are also recognized in Article 43. These include the right to health care services, adequate housing, and sanitation, adequate food of acceptable quality, clean and safe water and appropriate social security to vulnerable groups in the society. The 6th Kenya Human Development Report of 2009, Introduced a new measure for youth development in Kenya, the Youth Development Index (YDI). The index was at 0.5817 nationally but also depicted variations across the regions. The index is a composite of education, income and survivorship (health) dimensions. Therefore, it is critical to look at youth as a resource and a potential wealth for a nation. However, a large group of youths are potentially at risk of engaging in harmful anti-social behaviours, including risky sexual behaviour, substance use, and crime.

The constitution requires measures to be undertaken to ensure the youth access relevant education and training, have opportunities to participate in political, social, economic activities, and access to employment as well as protection from harmful cultural practices.

The Gender Inequality Index (GII)

It reflects gender-based disadvantage in three dimensions—reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market. The index shows the loss in potential human development due to inequality between female and male achievements in these dimensions. It varies between 0—when women and men fare equally—and 1, where one gender fares as poorly as possible in all measured dimensions. Kenya has an overall GII of 0.651(Draft 7th Human Development Report). This is however, not equal everywhere as there are regional disparities with counties located in Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASALS) having high Gender Inequality Indices. In addition, there are certain groups which are more likely to experience poverty. These vulnerable groups include children living in poor households, the disabled and the youth. Improving equity in gender issues and reducing gender disparities will benefit all sectors and thus contribute to sustainable economic growth, poverty reduction and social injustices.