Shaping the future

The report evaluates Kenya's development landscape, noting strengths in health and education but significant deficits in basic infrastructure and governance. It uses the International Futures (IFs) model to project outcomes through 2040, arguing that while Kenya is unlikely to reach upper-middle-income status by 2030, targeted interventions in agriculture, family planning, and corruption could meaningfully improve livelihoods.

• Kenya's health and education outcomes are generally superior to other lower-middle-income African countries, though education indicators like primary completion and average years of schooling have recently stagnated.
• Despite rapid progress in electricity access—increasing from roughly 20% in 2010 to about 58% in 2018—Kenya suffers from a severe deficit in water, sanitation, and housing infrastructure compared to its peers.
• The agricultural sector is inefficient, with average yields failing to improve significantly between 1980 and 2004; consequently, domestic demand is outstripping supply, increasing reliance on food imports.
• Kenya possesses significant renewable energy potential, including being the African leader in geothermal production and hosting the continent's largest wind farm, yet the government is pursuing a 1,000 MW coal plant in Lamu.
• Rapid population growth, with a growth rate of 3.3% per year between 1963 and 2000, threatens to overwhelm service delivery and creates a 'youth bulge' (nearly 50% in 2015) that could lead to social instability.
• Corruption and poor government capacity are major impediments to growth, exemplified by the Anglo Leasing scandal and the failure of the 'laptop project'.
• Under the 'Stuck in Traffic' (current path) scenario, Kenya is unlikely to achieve its Vision 2030 goal of becoming an upper-middle-income country.
• The 'Tuko Kazi' scenario demonstrates that aggressive but realistic interventions in family planning, agriculture, and governance could reduce extreme poverty from 15% to 9% by 2040 and increase GDP by US$72 billion in that year alone.
• The 'Bila Hopes' scenario warns that deteriorating governance and stalled service delivery could lead to increased food insecurity and a higher probability of violence surrounding the 2022 election cycle.

APA

Institute for Security Studies (2018). Shaping the future. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ear-18.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Security Studies. Shaping the future. 2018. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ear-18.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Security Studies |title=Shaping the future |date=June 2018 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ear-18.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforsecuritystudies2018shaping, author = {{Institute for Security Studies}}, title = {{Shaping the future}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2018}, month = jun, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ear-18.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }