In 1995, Kenya was among more than 180 countries that adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on Gender Equality. In doing so, these nations committed to the systemic protection and empowerment of women. Twenty-seven years later, the Kenyan woman has made giant strides forward, but she still has a long way to go.
Politically, women evidently hold only 21.6% of seats in parliament. Socially, 41% of Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence from their husbands or partners in their lifetime. Economically, women accounted for 61.9 percent of the jobs that were lost in 2020. Clearly, millions of our women are still waiting for that elusive bright future. They will be among the 22,120,458 registered voters who will hopefully troop to 46,232 polling stations on August 9th. In the privacy of that voting booth, the Kenyan woman should vote for leaders who will greatly aid her journey towards sustainable political, social and economic empowerment.
The Kenyan youth will be arriving at those voting booths in a largely disillusioned state as IEBC revealed that the number of youths registered to vote in 2022 stands at 39.84 percent which is a decline of 5.27 percent against 2017.”
The 2019 Census revealed that 5,341,182 or 38.9 percent of the 13,777,600 young Kenyans are jobless. This number is undoubtedly higher now due to COVID’s adverse economic impact. Although only a comparatively lower number of these youth will vote, they still have the power to elect leaders who will decisively address their economic predicament. Leaders who will oversee policies and investments that will create millions of new jobs every year.
Last year, Communications Authority of Kenya revealed that there were nearly 60 million mobile phones in Kenya. Out of these, 26.0 million were smartphones. Tragically, not a single of those smartphones was at least assembled in Kenya. If just 10 million of these smartphones were manufactured here in Kenya, investors would have made billions and created thousands of jobs. Will the next President and leaders enact legislation that will boost such investment leading to unprecedented creation of jobs?
How will these envisioned policies and political action finally decisively impact the Kenyan farmer? Time is ripe for the Kenyan farmer to play in the big league. After all,
The 2021 Global Hunger Index ranked Kenya 87th out of 116 countries. It described our level of hunger as serious. While this is unfortunate, it is also an opportunity for our farmers to produce sufficient food so that we can become more food secure. However, they can only do so through climate smart agriculture. The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) found that every dollar invested into climate smart agriculture doubles returns for farmers. As such, the millions of smallholder farmers who will enter polling booths on 9th August, should cast their votes for leaders who will boost climate smart agriculture.
Further, according to the World Bank, 18.8 million Kenyans live below the poverty line of $1.9 (Sh226) a day. With the current high cost of living, how is such a Kenyan supposed to survive when even their healthcare and quality education are beyond reach. This is the plight of nearly 19 million fellow Kenyans.
Honestly, we the registered voters can either lift all Kenyans from poverty or push us deeper beneath that dreaded poverty line. We can change the plight of our women and young people. The ball is in our court. We can either score own goals by voting for shortsighted, leaders or score a hat trick by voting for servant leaders with passionate willingness to change our Nation. Think green, act green.
