The Basics on Kenya

"The relationship between culture and development should be clarified and deepened in constructive and practical ways."

—from Our Creative Diversity: The UN World Commisssionon on Culture and Development Report


Kenya is an African country bordering the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Tanzania. At 580 367 sq. km., it is 17 times smaller than the size of Canada. Kenya has approximately 7 million more people compared to Canada at 40 million. Most striking is the structure of the population. In Canada 15.2% of people are over the age of 65 compared to only 2.6% in Kenya. Canada’s median age is 40.7 years while Kenya is less than half that at 18.8 years. This means that my fellow travelers and I would have already lived half of our lives if we grew up in Kenya. These statistics are attributed to the excess of mortality in terms of AIDS which can lower life expectancy, create a higher infant mortality and higher death rates. The real difference between the two countries can be seen most drastically in life expectant. Canadians have the ability to live into their eighties while in Kenya, a birthday past sixty can be pretty remarkable. Urbanization is extremely large in Kenya where 81% of the population lives in an urbanized setting compared to only 22% of Canadians. My largest interest is in education and in Kenya I will be teaching and designing curriculum to improve reading, writing and math skills. Comparing the education levels in Canada and Kenya, you can see grave differences in how boys and girls are raised and brought up. In Canada, school life expectancy is placed at 17 years and 99% of people aged 15 and over can read and write and 4.9% of the GDP is spent on education. In Kenya 7% of the GDP is spent on education. Dollar wise this is still less than Canada because Canada has a stronger economy and unfortunately does not yield as good of results where only 85% of the population over the age of 15 can read and write and school life expectancy is 10 years. It is unfortunate to know that the standards of education are not equal around the world and some countries are not progressing to a standard that seems acceptable. Universal Education should be a right and not all children around the world have that opportunity or world view.

Government is another fascination to me. I truly believe in the transformative power of government to effect change and believe in the process. Some might call this naïve, others might say its not strong enough but government is another area I was really interested to learn about. Both Canada and Kenya derive from the United Kingdom. Kenya’s date of independence December 12, 1963 is a little over 1000 years shy of Canada’s July 1st, 1867 anniversary. In Kenya, a president is elected by popular vote for a five year term and is eligible for a second term. In order to avoid a run off vote, candidates must win at least 25% of the vote in at least five of Kenya’s sever provinces. In Canada our head of state is the monarchy of England, a hereditary family model. When Queen Elizabeth is not in Canada, the governor general acts as our head of state and is appointed by the monarch on advice of the Prime Minister of Canada. The Governor General will designate a Prime Minister to govern. The Prime Minister is usually the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons or the leader of the majority coalition. Canada’s MP’s including the Prime Minister are elected by the people for a term of office. Political pressure groups are common in any form of government. Lets see if you can guess which groups belong to which country:

Group A:
Council of Islamic Preachers, Human Rights Commission, Muslim Human Rights Forum, National Convention Executive Council (Pro-reform coalition of political parties and nongovernment organizations), the Roman Catholic Church

Group B: Agriculture Sector, automobile industry, business groups, chemical industry, commercial banks, communications sector, energy sector, environmentalists, public administration groups, steel industry and trade unions.

Group A belongs to the pressure groups in Kenya while Group B belongs to the pressure groups in Canada. I hope to be able to find literature from these groups when I am in Nairobi just to learn about why they are interested in government affairs and what they are trying to accomplish. It is easier to understand what pressure groups are doing in Canada because it affects our trade laws and our industries and because we’ve had a lot of elections in the past couple of years; there have been a lot of town halls and media coverage about these groups.

Well I’ve covered lessons in Geography, Government and People. I’ve given you the basics. Some of you might be asking why I chose to compare Canada and Kenya. I think in a program where I am actively learning about another culture and another way of life; it is paramount to emerge myself in Kenyan life but I think its just as important to recognize the vast cross cultural differences between my home and host countries. In Canada, we have it good. Our quality of life is more than just a number its comfortable. Learning about that comfort, why it is comfortable and the agents of change that keep it comfortable is just as important to learning why I am going to be uncomfortable in Kenya at Education for life. Well my next lesson plan will hopefully touch on the economy, language, military and transnational issues. I would also like to do a case study on AIDS and the slums as some of my fellow Kenya bound Beyond Borders pals have written about.

For More information:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/