While Kenya's politicians are already busy chasing their next seats and the national media, reverent and aligned to the opium of world information, only highlight their skirmishes, a comprehensive report published by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) clearly illustrates the damage created by the pandemic and the need to follow the dictates of the World Health Organization and its restrictions.
We find ourselves at the beginning of 2022, just under two years after the start of the emergency in Kenya, with one-third of Kenyans from the lower-middle class unable to afford to pay house rent. Many of them have already had to step back from a standard of living that in 2019 finally elevated them just above the survival threshold, set by convention at about a dollar a day.
In Nairobi, the threshold for access to certain services, such as electricity, water and a two-room room for a family of 4/5 people, was a bit higher and assumed a salary of at least 20 thousand Kenyan shillings per month (about 180 euros). The average rent for 70% of Kenyans is around 5,000 shillings per month, while only 4% of the population pays more than 10,000 shillings.
KIPPRA shows that while prior to the pandemic only 6.6% of Kenyans could not afford to pay house rent and risked being homeless or returning to their former rural dimension, giving up the possibility, even through work, to overcome total misery, by the end of 2021 the percentage has jumped to 37.5%.
According to the report, some 6.2 million Kenyans have lost their jobs or seen their wages cut significantly. Experts say this is the largest regression in poverty Kenya has ever experienced in the history of its republic.
"Before the Covid-19 pandemic, about 45.8 percent of households paid their rent on the date agreed with the landlord. After the pandemic, about 30.8% of households do so," the research reports. "Households that had access to food stocks showed that only in mid- to high-potential areas did they maintain a threshold of forbearance, having food stocks that would last up to less than a week. Food poverty is a big problem and families in all counties are vulnerable."
If housing is a fundamental obstacle to a decent life and to the preservation of the household, Kenyans are now also affected by a major food crisis, focusing their expenses, with savings stretched to the bare minimum, on survival and having to forgo not only surplus, but basic needs, such as health care, water supply and electricity.
This in the medium term could lead to the onset of diseases that make Covid-19 seem the lesser of evils. From here, as we illustrated in the book "The Pandemic in Africa, the ecatomy that did not occur", it is possible to understand the indifference towards the virus, the difficulty in understanding why the restrictions and closures that have worsened the lives of millions of people, while the very few who were already well do not suffer, and today conquer the front pages of newspapers with their hunger and thirst for power, in the face of those who every day desperately try to stay afloat.