EFFECT OF HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT ON POVERTY IN KENYA

Stephen Okiya Shisoka, Dr.Joshua Matanda Wepukhulu

Abstract


Poverty remains one of the main global goals today. Goal 1 of the Sustainable development Goals is to “End Poverty in all its forms everywhere”. Tremendous efforts have been made in ensuring there’s reduction in the levels of poverty around the world. Developed world, donors and developing countries have come up with development policies targeting the poor to help alleviate poverty in the developing world. Such efforts have also been undertaken in Kenya to achieve reduction in poverty. The study sought to establish robust evidence of target sectors that will greatly impact reduction in poverty level in Kenya. The objective of the study is to establish a relationship between human capital development and poverty. Evidence based policy plays a key role in poverty alleviation. An accurate answer to which interventions work best will inform policies by the Kenyan government as it tries to design policies in assisting the poor improve their welfare. The study used secondary data collection from World Development Report and Human Development Index between 2005 and 2015. The annual reports give national estimates of socio-economic indicators on health, education, women empowerment, poverty (money metric and multi-dimensional) etc. The study used both descriptive and inferential research designs to establish any existing relationship between the dependent variable, poverty incidence and independent variables; health, education, access to safe water and sanitation and access to infrastructure. It used prevalence of HIV, expected years of schooling, improved water source and roads paved of total roads as proxies for health, education, access to safe water and sanitation and access to infrastructure. The study found prevalence of HIV, expected years of schooling and roads paved of total roads to be statistically significant but improved water source wasn’t statistically significant at 5 percent level.

Key Words: Health, Poverty, Education, Access to Water and Sanitation, Infrastructure


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