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Kenya

Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

Updates

The Inter-Agency Committee for Gender Statistics (IAC-GS) Technical Committee was established, chaired by KNBS and co-chaired by the State Department of Gender Affairs (SDGA) and composed of ministries, departments and agencies, civil society organizations and UN agencies.
Technical assistance was provided to the National Treasury to update the Standard Chart of Accounts to include specific coding on gender equality and women’s empowerment, nutrition, sanitation and child protection, as well as to train government officers on a system to track and make public allocations for gender equality and produce data for SDG indicator 5.c.1.
The gender statistics capacities of 60 data producers were strengthened through a high-level training workshop, organized in partnership with KNBS, to address capacity gaps and the increasing demand for gender statistics to monitor the SDGs.
UN Women in collaboration with the Council of Governors launched County-Specific Gender Data Sheets for 10 select counties in partnership with the KNBS. It is expected these data sheets will inform the mid-term review of the County-Integrated Development Plans.
Research grants have been awarded to 16 students and academic institutions to conduct research and analysis relevant to gender and the SDGs, in partnership between the University of Nairobi, KNBS, SDGA and UN Women.
The Monitoring and Evaluation Department (MED) within the State Department for Planning was tasked with mainstreaming gender within Medium-Term Plan III national reporting indicators following a January 2019 workshop for technical officers to edit, harmonize and finalize the draft national indicator handbook. Following the workshop, UN Women undertook an analysis of the gender indicators adopted.

Progress of the Women Count project in Kenya

For detailed results go to the annual report

0-19% 20-39% 40-59% 60-79% 80-100%

Country Fact Sheet

How are we making women count in Kenya?

Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

Create an Enabling Environment

The challenges

Lack of trust, siloed data communities and limited push for data-driven decision-making have hampered the generation of gender statistics in Kenya. The Statistics Act of 2006 fails to encourage statistical participation by recognizing the roles of various groups of subnational entities in collecting and producing data. County governments also lack the necessary infrastructure to collect, collate and manage data – mostly due to inadequate funding and lack of political will.

The Women Count response includes

Providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Statistics Unit, to review its data-collection tools, and to ministries, departments, select counties and agencies, for the systematic integration of gender statistics in agriculture-sector strategic plans;

Updating and disseminating the National Gender Data Sheet 2019 nationally and in select counties;

Providing technical assistance to integrate gender-related SDG indicators into Kenya's Vision 2030 development plan; and

Working with intergovernmental bodies to establish coordination mechanisms for gender statistics at national and county-level.

Increase Data Production

The challenges

In Kenya, little data is disaggregated by sex, age, wealth quintile, region, etc., which undermines the extent to which data can inform implementation and monitoring of the gender-related SDGs. Several important dimensions for assessing the impact of government programming on human welfare – and by extension the state of gender equality in Kenya – have inadequate data or none at all, while there is a deluge of unused data due to the inadequate in-depth analysis of many national surveys.

The Women Count response includes

Developing gender data sheets in selected counties;

Providing technical assistance to the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) to undertake a time-use survey;

Developing metadata/indicator information sheets for the 34 SDG indicators and other commitments; and

Finalizing a women’s empowerment index in partnership with UNICEF.

Photo: Georgina Smith / CIAT

Jane Gicheha collecting rainwater data on the farm.

Improve Data Accessibility & Use

The challenges

Insufficient training and awareness-raising is the main factor behind inadequate demand for and use of gender statistics in Kenya. While KNBS has a comprehensive data dissemination policy and has recently improved the timeliness and availability of data to different users, there is still a challenge in accessibility and use. Harmonized data-management systems are lacking and information resource centres in rural areas are inadequate to support dissemination.

The Women Count response includes

Supporting the development and dissemination of a ‘Women and Men’ booklet, gender data sheets, a women’s empowerment index and other gender statistics;

Mining existing data sets for further insights and generating data to monitor the SDGs, including through multiple levels of disaggregation;

Convening high-level biannual fora to discuss gender statistics-related issues with policymakers and other stakeholders and supporting civil society organizations to engage in gender statistics dialogues; and

Supporting annual research grants to academic institutions and CSOs to conduct analysis relevant to gender and the SDGs.