Kenya
Total IDRC Support
668 research activities worth CAD172.1 million since 1972
Our support is helping
- improve access to justice for 1.5 million people in Nairobi’s informal settlements
- address health inequities and examine the feasibility of e-Health in Kenya
- restore and expand Kenya’s capacity to conduct high-quality policy-relevant research
- enhance women’s economic opportunities
- preserve farmers’ livelihoods with a cattle lung disease vaccine
- strengthen farmers’ ability to deal with climate change impacts
Kenya has long been the economic hub of East Africa, but despite significant economic strides in the past decade, poverty and inequality remain.
Our long-term support for research in the country has focused on areas such as rural development, agriculture, health, education, and climate change adaptation.
We have also prioritized economic research to strengthen economic debate and promote evidence-based decision-making. For example, IDRC helped launch the Nairobi-based African Economic Research Consortium. Now an independent public organization, the Consortium is addressing the shortage of policy-oriented economic researchers in sub-Saharan Africa. Hundreds have graduated from the Consortium’s master’s and doctoral programs, and they now form a cadre of influential economists who contribute to their national economies from within the region’s governments, private sector, and universities.
Digital solution for peace
Researchers discovered that a deadly conflict in 2012 between farmers and nomadic herders in Kenya was fuelled largely by rumours. To prevent a repeat occurrence, Canada’s Sentinel Project and Nairobi’s iHub technology incubator launched “Una Hakika”, a mobile application that enables communities to report, track, and verify rumours. The application has reached approximately 45,000 beneficiaries in Tana Delta and is being scaled in Lamu County and Nairobi to reach approximately 1 million people.
Evidence-based policy for health
Research on the impact of communications and information technologies is strengthening Kenya’s health system. Thanks to our funding, the Kenya Medical Research Institute has generated the evidence needed by the Ministry of Health to revise the national e-Health strategy, develop the first-ever e-Health policy, and establish mobile health, or m-health, standards and guidelines. These health interventions are now better regulated to protect patient information and advance patient health.