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  • Essay / Kenya's Most Challenging and Persistent Problems

    In 2003, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government formulated a five-year development strategy. This strategy was anchored on the principles of democracy and empowerment (the strategy advocated for the empowerment of the population through the creation of jobs and other income opportunities. Despite all these interventions, job creation adequate, productive and sustainable continues to be the highest priority.) economic challenge for Kenya. For over four and a half decades now, the government of Kenya has consistently expressed the need to create enough employment opportunities to absorb the country's growing workforce. Unemployment and underemployment have been identified as Kenya's most difficult and persistent problems. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay. Jobs in Kenya can be difficult to find simply due to the country's high unemployment rate and lack of resources. diversity of jobs. The main industry in Kenya is agriculture (with tea, coffee and flower growing being quite important), and around 75% of the population is employed in this field. In terms of income, tourism is also important. The official unemployment rate in 2004 was 15%, although some estimates place the actual figure much higher. People with highly specialized training in fields other than agriculture may find employment opportunities in Kenya scarce. This has created a difficult situation as more and more young Kenyans pursue higher education, only to find that the job market cannot accommodate them. Minimum wages for jobs in Kenya vary by location and skill level, and are not uniform across the country. In 2006, the minimum wage for an urban worker was approximately 4,600 Kenyan shillings, or US$60 per month (at 2006 exchange rates). This income is not enough to support a family, forcing many workers to rely on additional work or subsistence farming to survive. The agricultural sector continues to dominate Kenya's economy, although only 15 percent of Kenya's total land area has sufficient fertility and rainfall to be cultivated. Agriculture is the second largest contributor to Kenya's gross domestic product (GDP) after the services sector. Kenya's services sector, which contributes about 63 percent of GDP, is dominated by tourism. The tourism sector has shown steady growth in most years. In Kenya, the service sector contributes 47.7% and the agricultural sector 35% and industry contributes up to 17.6% to the GDP of the economy. As a country exporting agricultural products and importing capital goods, Kenya regularly has a trade balance deficit which makes it very dependent. on loans and aid to finance necessary imports. The trade balance deficit varies considerably, depending, among other things, on the commercial success of agricultural export products in a given year (as we have seen, this in turn depends on weather conditions and international prices of raw materials). In 1996, for example, the deficit was $73.5 million, while that figure increased dramatically to $251.7 million in 2000, a year of endemic drought. However, thanks to large foreign exchange reserves, which amounted to US$875 million in 2000, Kenya was able to reduce.