- According to the World Health Organisation, life expectancy refers to the number of years a person can expect to live.
- It is an important way of assessing the health of a population and is used to inform health policy and initiatives that impact everyday life.
Image: FILE
Ever wondered why countries known to have higher life expectancy, are mostly rich nations that score high in the development index and are generally peaceful?
The other day, I came across some rolling statistics on countries with the highest life expectancy. The data was collected from the year 1965 to 2022, with a colourful display using flags of the nations that have been top 10 over the years. One thing that stood out is that no African nation made the cut. But why?
For me, it sums up lack of political will, which causes underdevelopment in Africa today. Many African governments are not fully committed to using the resources available to improve living conditions throughout the continent, leading to compromised quality of infrastructure, poor education and health, which ultimately lead to a lower life expectancy.
Looking at just one of the factors, wouldn’t a highly informed and educated person make better informed decisions in life, yes! Wouldn’t better infrastructure, like better staffed and well equipped hospitals, answer to serious medical emergencies reducing premature deaths in the country, well of course, yes!
Its not too late, we can start with changing this narrative with our youth. Now that we have carried colonial mistakes long enough, as well as our ancestors and forefathers mistakes, it's time we critically explored a more nuanced understanding of how our young people can shape their societies, both positively and negatively, through making the right political choices by prioritising peace and development for a better future.
Peace and justice in terms of happiness and satisfaction of citizens which translate to better quality of life cannot be ignored. The youth demographic is on the rise in Kenya, and they are many at times caught on the wrong side of the law. We cannot ignore the case in many parts of the world that the majority of the society is under the age of 35.
The youth are not just the future as the cliché goes, they are the present. This means that the youth in Kenya need to be included and embedded in processes taking place now in efforts towards peaceful, just and developed societies, not as token representations for organisations, politicians and opinion leaders, but they can be treated as people with some level of influence. And it's not like they do not want that engagement, these youth are also looking forward to a better nation.
The presence of genuine peace, just in itself creates a very conducive environment for development. We simply need to create a culture of being peaceful citizens.
Besides creating a peaceful environment, when it comes to a having a conducive environment for development, being Mkenya daima is just tough. The Kenya Revenue Authority is always on you, you are servicing fuliza, hustler fund, shylocks, mshwari and the cost of living is unforgiving. Stress can therefore be the next thing that beckons.
According to the World Health Organisation, life expectancy refers to the number of years a person can expect to live. It is an important way of assessing the health of a population and is used to inform health policy and initiatives that impact everyday life. According to the World Bank, the average life expectancy age in Kenya is 61.
As a hindrance to a high life expectancy, Kenya is dealing with numerous development issues.
These include high poverty rates, high child mortality rates, shortage of doctors, struggles of admittance to public hospitals, lack of medical student retention due to brain drain and lack of access to clean water.
Others are issues of implementation of the universal health care system, poorly maintained health facilities and expansive treatment measures in hospitals.
Looking at how prone we are to stress, can the government save us? Through change in policy, investments, encouraging entrepreneurship through friendly policies, job creation, reduction on unnecessary imports, creating subsidies, lowering the cost of food, healthcare and education. We may soon be one of those countries that rank well in terms of our life expectancy.
Luckily, it seems that the more you develop as a country, the higher the average age in terms of life expectancy for its people, thus our story will definitely change in a few years to come.