Summary

This is the first volume in a new series Africa: Policies for Prosperity. For the first time in more than a generation, sustained economic growth has been achieved across the continent - despite the downturn in global economic fortunes since 2008 - and in many countries these gains have been realized through policy reforms driven by the decisive leadership of a new generation of economic policymakers. The process of reform is continuous, however, and the challenge currently facing this new generation is how to harness these favourable gains in macroeconomic stability and turn them into a coherent strategy for sustainable growth and poverty reduction over the coming decades. These challenges are substantial and encompass the broad remit of economic policy. Each volume in this series brings leading scholars into the policy arena to examine these challenges and to lay out, in a rigorous but accessible manner, key challenges and policy options facing policymakers on the continent. This first volume on Kenya explores the challenges facing an economy standing at a crossroads. Kenya has experienced a period of high and sustained growth since the mid 1990s, growth which involved economic transformation away from a heavy reliance on traditional economic activities towards an emerging manufacturing economy. But this process, and the economic and social stability that had come to characterize Kenya, have been severely tested by the post-election violence of 2008. Restoring equitable growth and sustaining the structural transformation of the economy is essential if Kenya is to leave this dark period behind. The chapters in this volume address the key issues that will face economic policy makers in the coming years. They cover the conventional but central question of finance and macroeconomic management, but also much deeper structural issues of trade, employment generation and education; of land policy, migration and urbanization; and the fiscal challenges facing an ageing but increasingly urbanized (and increasingly affluent) society.