Data Hub

Uphill task for Laikipia in county’s Sh600 daily household income goal

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Laikipia County is, for all intents and purposes, a shopkeepers’ paradise. One in every six households has a registered wholesale or retail outlet. And many more are eyeing a career in trade with 4,960 residents currently operating in urban centres as hawkers.

That, in summary, is what can be gleaned from the second edition of Laikipia County’s Statistical Abstract released this month. The remaining 46 counties are yet to release their figures.

The data compiled in partnership with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that the county of 523,735 residents — grouped in 103,100 households— have a total of 15,308 retail and wholesale outlets.

The county also reports that its manufacturers number 1,140 even though their scale of production is unknown. By comparison, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, a Nairobi-based national lobby for industries, has only 800 members.

“We are pleased to be the first county to prepare a detailed document to aid our planning and guide investors,” said the Governor, Ndiritu Muriithi, at the August 2 launch presided over by Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich.

“A lot of our interventions are household-focused; we are looking to this data to help us understand family and its economic activities,” he said, adding that the statistics will guide the county’s step towards the target income of Sh600 per day per household.

That target is likely to be an uphill task for a county with 184,700 of its population currently living below the poverty line. Data shows a total of 146, 400 of Laikipia residents are in employment, 42.8 per cent of them in informal jobs.

The county’s five-year income target of Sh600 per day loosely translates to an annual income of Sh180,000 per resident in a country whose income per capita (national average annual income per person) hit Sh166,314 last year

Apart from the high concentration of shops, Laikipia is an agribusiness base, with residents earning a total of Sh1.5 billion from the sale of macadamia nuts alone last year, the data shows. Other revenue streams in the horticultural segment are pineapples, pawpaws, tomatoes, bananas, cabbages and cut flower. The county’s other economic drivers include a thriving aquaculture from where it generated Sh29 million last year and a livestock segment.

Despite its unique structure of economy, Laikipia still provides its residents with a higher quality of life than an average Kenyan enjoys elsewhere. Its poverty gap (portion of the total population living below the poverty line is only 10.5 per cent) outperforming the national average of 12.2 per cent. And at 56.9 per cent wealth gap (between rich and poor) Laikipia is a more equal society than the national case of 76.2 per cent.

And where a Gini Coefficient of “zero” represents a perfect equality and “one” depicts maximum inequality in the distribution of incomes among residents, Laikipia’s score of 0.37 outshines the national average of 0.45.

But the county remains an integral part of the national challenge. Its residents make or lose money at the same time and pace as an average Kenyan, the data shows. Its people also get happy, sick or die at nearly the same time and rate as the average Kenyan in any part of the republic.

And while it beats the natural average on child and maternal mortality rates, its residents are still exposed. The data shows only 48 per cent of expectant women in Laikipia give birth in health faculties, comparing poorly with a national average of 61 per cent.

Similarly, only 18 per cent of the households have treated bed nets against a national average of 59 per cent.

The Laikipia-KNBS data found that only 14 per cent of children slept under treated mosquito nets the night before the survey, compared to a national’s 54 per cent. One in every three Laikipia households owns a bicycle, nearly every family has a radio while 340,800 residents have access to the Internet, the data shows.

Unlike the first edition, the latest document has been expanded to capture population projections, economic activities, governance, law enforcement trend, social services and educational activities.

Crucial economic indicators such as Laikipia’s gross domestic product, average household income and inflation are however still omitted.