THE STATUS OF KENYAN WOMEN

Engendering Kenya’s Fiscal Budget at the Hotel Hilton.
Date: 30th June 2011
Venue: Hotel Hilton
I decide to take my chance and attend a seminar at the Hotel Hilton for a few reasons; (i) it is free (ii) it is at the Hilton, da that means something (iii) I have been out of school for a while now and I am definitely I little rusty and can do with some new bywords in the world of gender.
I land at the hotel Hilton at 4.00 P.M. big places are disorienting and I am not disappointed with myself that I am disoriented. I sit down, an extremely dark chick in black clothing and handbag sits next to me. She seems snobbish so I busy myself with the seminar.
The business of the day though understands what the Kenyan budget has in it for gender (women). As you would expect the who is who in civil society is here. Women who brag about being Juliah Ojiamabo’s contemporaries, others who assert that they single handendly lobbied for the creation of the Women Enterprise Fund and a few others.
The form though is sponsored by Heinrich Boll Foundation. Among the panelist is John Mutua from (Institute of Economic Affairs), Hulda Ouma; (Society for International Development) and Godfrey Ndeng’e ( Social Policy adviser Ministry of Finance). The forum is excellent as you will expect. They gender by-words grandiose, here’s some of them.
Gender Responsive Budgeting
Sectors that have explicit impact on gender ( Health, Education and such)
Sectors that have implicit impact on gender ( Transport, Construction and such)
Gender Situation Anylsis.
Difference between allocation of funds to gender issues by the government (Obligation of Conduct) and implementation of projects funded (Obligation of Result).
Apparently Kenya is also moving from its current fiscal mode of Budgeting to a new mode called (Program Based Budgeting), now this is where the government gives funds to specific projects say build (n) number of schools rather than give it to Ongeri and his Permanent Secretary (who is also a man) to eat.
So this is what the Kenyan budget had for women;
1. 300 million for sanitary towels,
2. 440 million KSHs for the Women Enterprise Fund
3. 48 million KSHs to fight cervical and breast cancer
Some few facts were also unearthed by the panelists,
(i) 0.9 boy/girl ratio in the education sector
(ii) Only 2.7% of agricultural extension of officers are women
(iii) Kenya’s population grows at an annual rate of 2.72%
(iv) Every day 23 Kenyan women die in child birth related deaths.
(v) The sexual offenses act has never been fully implemented because of lack of funds.
So there you go that is how those meeting at the Hilton conceived the status of Kenyan Women as being. Of course we had some tea at the end of it all though I insisted on coffee. We latter retired to our different directions and the women of Kenya are not any better because we discussed them.
(Apparently this is my most broken English blog-post ever and I still trust my English teacher, my English unlike anything else of me is not modest in-fact it is far above Average.) have a woman minding day.