Kenya joins the 60+ countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe that use UNICEF’s National Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (N-MODA) to analyze child poverty and deprivation in the country. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has chosen MODA for estimating multidimensional deprivation and poverty among children of all ages. The study was officially launched in March 2018.
KNBS chose MODA as a tool for analysis because it, contrary to other approaches, uses individual data for children to assess multiple deprivations in a rights-based framework. The MODA application for Kenya is complemented with monetary poverty analysis and monitors progress in realization of SDG 1.2.2. (reducing poverty of men, women, and children of all ages in all its dimensions) between 2008-09 and 2014 using Kenya Demographic Health Survey data. The results are provided separately for boys and girls and the 47 county profiles.
MODA results in the study have been complemented with qualitative research findings from fieldwork in the counties of Turkana, Kakamega, and Kitui carried out during August 2016. SPRI team carried out numerous focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with service providers in the sectors of health, education, and nutrition, and beneficiaries – mothers and children – to gain an insight on barriers in service accessibility and bottlenecks in service provision.
In the near future Angola, Cambodia, Zambia, Lesotho, Rwanda, Swaziland, Ethiopia and Libya will publish a child poverty study based on MODA.
Download the report: Child Poverty in Kenya: A multidimensional approach