In a developing country like Kenya, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been in the front line in helping Kenya realize its developmental goals of vision 2030. This vision's objectives are reducing inequality, sustainable growth acceleration, and management of scarcity of resources. The lending institutions have also seen Kenya make tremendous achievement in realizing its millennium development goals of reducing child mortality rate, universal primary education access and bridging gender gaps in education. Economically, the World Bank has been active in cautioning Kenyan government on its expenditure and increased borrowing rate that has seen the country wallowing in massive debts. The institution issued fresh warning to Kenya in April 2017 as the debts now stand at 3.8 trillion shillings The World Bank report indicates that Kenya's monetary expenditure especially after the extended electioneering period and infrastructure could shrink the public sector and boost the private sector with which will result to economic volatility leading to inflation. The IMF also cautioned Kenya's amendment Act that sort to limit the lending and deposit rate would adversely affect Kenya's economic growth.
Kenya has been faced by long electioneering periods that results to political turmoil over the last 8yeasr since the promulgation of the new constitution. This process has always led to violence and displacement of people from the northern region and the informal settlements. The World Bank has been in the frontline to donate money to aid these people and build houses for them. This has been on the World Bank’s objective to boost the social systems in Kenya and reduce the humanitarian crisis. The World Bank has been strengthening its relationship with UNHCR and other organization to create solutions for displaced people in Kenya. It is therefore clear that the IMF and the World Bank funding have helped in the development of social economic and political foundations in Kenya.
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There is a close link between a healthy nation and the economic growth. There are substantive ways in which a healthy population contributes to the growth of the economy. This is because health is a direct source of human welfare. Therefore, investment in health is a priority in developing countries like Kenya. These ways include; increasing national income. A healthy population accounts for higher income compared to an economy that struggles with fight against pandemics. When people are healthy or have access to good health care they are able to work and promote economic growth. They do not have to rely on government funding to access healthcare. When there is high national income there is a better economy and people obtain better diet, clean water, and sanitation and improve their living standards hence reducing the risks of contracting communicable diseases. Secondly, is an increased literacy level (David 2008). A child who was raised in a healthy and safe environment can also access better education. When people are struggling with diseases there is reduction in levels of education enrolment since education is a secondary need. High literacy level is a determinant to economic growth . In such a country, economic growth is inevitable.
Another way is increased worker productivity. There is a direct proportion between health and worker productivity. A healthy nation has many of its workers being its citizens. A sickly nation will engage workers from the developed nation to come and build infrastructure facilities. The money earned is benefiting another country instead of improving the lives of the locals. This is due to the effect of ill health productivity. Also, growth in cognitive ability is a way in which health determines economic growth (David 2008). Human’s cognitive ability is developed from childhood. Children with low cognitive ability have undergone malnutrition, lack of health checkup and suffering from chronic diseases. Around 30million children are born in developing countries with impaired growth (UN 2000) this affects their intellectual ability and hence poor performance in education and extracurricular activities. This aspect is experienced in developing countries thus slow economic growth since the resulting population is inactive.
Kenya has made tremendous improvements in improving its health care system. Kenya has been a priority to U.S foreign aid due to its transparency in the legal procedures, especially in East Africa. In 2014 the Kenyan government launched a World Bank aided program called Health Insurance Subsidy Program (HISP) and with other partners including the UKaid. This program gives unprivileged Kenyans access to better health care through subsidy. This program has been very productive in Kenya as it has been part of World Bank’s many programs to offer subsidized health care to people across Africa. Kenya Has further extended this initiative to the national health insurance fund. This is to cater for more than one million Kenyans that consistently fall below the poverty line due to health-related expenditures.
USAID announced that it would grant Kenya with 4million dollars to improve its healthcare system in October 2016. This is due to the realization that Kenyan government only allocates 5.7% of this budget to healthcare an area that should be the government’s priority. The above funds were meant to improve maternal healthcare and improve facilities that would reduce infant mortality rate that's a significant threat to Kenya's population growth. This money has so far been used in training women in primary health care measures encouraging entrepreneurship in healthcare. In the last one month, the president has been closing deals with the Cuban government to have some of its doctors in Kenya for a year. This program is meant to expose the Kenyan doctors to a consultative and practical engagement with Cuban Medicare system that has been on the edge of the world.
References
Brown, H., & Green, M. (2017). Demonstrating development: meetings as management in Kenya's health sector. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute , 23 (S1), 45-62.
David E.B,& David C (2008) Population Health and Economic Growth. A journal of The Commission on Growth and Development.
Musila, J. W., & Yiheyis, Z. (2015). The impact of trade openness on growth: The case of Kenya. Journal of Policy Modeling , 37 (2), 342-354.
Ravallion, M. (2017). Poverty comparisons . Routledge.
Sachs, J. (2014). The case for aid. Foreign policy , 21 , 2014.
