Kenya seeks alternative funding after aid cuts
Friday October 06 2017
UNDAF has in the last three years provided Ksh57 billion ($552.3m) financing to Kenya, its 2016-2017 report shows. FOTOSEARCH
Kenya is bracing to adopt new ways of financing social services after the United Nations cut development assistance funding.
This follows the US President Donald Trump administration’s withdrawal of $32.5 million funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an agency that supports family planning programmes in Kenya and other 150 countries.
As a result, the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) that has been supporting Kenya has been forced to reduce its funding.
The move has forced Kenya to seek alternative ways raise funds for its social services.
At a recent workshop where senior government officials and UN staff held consultations on the new financing structure, the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya, Siddharth Chatterjee, called for better use of the limited resources and different ways of attracting partners.
“The Government and the UN Country Team already have converged around national priorities. Now we need harmonise resource mobilisation and to bring in our respective strengths and comparative advantages,” said Mr Chatterjee.
He added that some of the joint projects had already begun attracting donor interest.
READ:US Congress rejects Trump's Africa aid cuts
Financing to Kenya
UNDAF has in the last three years provided Ksh57 billion ($552.3m) financing to Kenya, its 2016-2017 report shows. This is out of the Ksh128 billion ($1.2bn) needed to fully implement projects in the current partnership framework.
The two partners are now working 2018-2022 framework that it will focus on projects implementation.
Some of the programmes include universal healthcare, security is some of Kenya’s remote border areas including cross border security programme with Ethiopia.
Treasury’s deputy chief economist, Monica Asuna, called for reduction of transaction costs and collective reporting and accountability in implementation of the programmes.
‘‘If we agree within the key result areas to jointly mobilise resources and have one main UN agency manage the resources for the various activities under that result area then we could reduce the time that could be spent by each agency on such areas as procurement, human resource and each agency trying to implement programmes on their own,” she said.
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