• Treasury CS Ukur Yatani says Covid-19 has adversely affected many sectors such as education, health, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing and trade.
•Kenya signed on to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015.
Image: FILE
The Covid-19 pandemic is holding back Kenya’s achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals.
National Treasury CS Ukur Yatani has said Covid-19 adds to existing challenges of inadequate funding, inadequate timely and disaggregated data and inadequate capacity.
CS Yatani said Covid-19 has set back education, health, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing and trade.
“This has affected the livelihoods of the most vulnerable groups and wiped out many SDG gains,” Yatani said at the Treasury on Monday. He spoke during the launch of the second Voluntary National Review on implementation of the SDGs.
The report to stakeholders indicates 40 per cent of the rural population lives in poverty. It contains an action plan to address in gaps and challenges to achievement of the SDGs.
Poverty is defined as living on $1.90 (Sh202.56) or less per day.
This compares to 27.5 per cent of the peri-urban and 29.4 per cent of the core urban population.
“Households in rural areas on average spend less than half of what is spent by the households in the core urban areas,” the survey reads.
SDG number one is to end poverty.
A sizeable proportion of Kenya’s population continues to suffer multidimensional poverty and exclusion from basic social and economic benefits and opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, the report says.
Turkana has the highest rate of poverty (79.4 per cent) followed by Mandera (77.6 per cent), Samburu (75.8 per cent) and Busia (69.3per cent).
The counties with the lowest poverty rates are Nairobi (16.7 per cent), Nyeri (19.3 per cent), Meru (19.4 per cent) and Kirinyaga (20 per cent).
Poverty is clearly more prevalent in rural than urban areas.
Yatani said a number of goals, targets and indicators need to be fast-tracked as they are still lagging behind.
They include poverty reduction, reduction in maternal mortality, malaria and non -communicable diseases, unemployment, gender-related indicators and environmental degradation among others.
“Moving forward, more effort will be required to accelerate these goals, targets and indicators,” he said.
The CS said, however, great strides have been made in infrastructure and social aspects that keep the country on course in achieving the SDGs.
Kenya is part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015.
The agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which include ending poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being for all, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation and affordable and clean energy.
The goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030.
(Edited by V. Graham)