Our system strengthening work is enabling health services in Nairobi to better predict and respond to emergencies. It has contributed to the local government's 'Urban Early Warning Early Action' initiative which received a Milan Pact Award in 2019.
CMAM2021
"CMAM 20 years on: Going to scale in fragile contexts": A conference for practitioners hosted by Concern Worldwide on 22–25 March 2021
Find out more
Read our 2020 annual report
Concern's objectives, activities and achievements in 2020 can be found in our new annual report.
Read the report
Kenya
Why are we in Kenya? The latest poverty data from The World Bank indicates that 36% of people in Kenya are still living below the poverty line, while youth unemployment stands at 39%. Concern’s work is concentrated where most of Kenya’s poor live: in rural, arid and semi-arid lands in the north, as well as in the informal settlements of Nairobi.
*We are currently responding to the threat of COVID-19 in Kenya. Find out more about our response here.
A significant proportion of Kenya’s population lacks access to basic services such as education, health, electricity and safe drinking water
Climate change continues to seriously impact the poor in rural areas, with Kenya regularly experiencing devastating droughts. The 2019 drought came less than 18 months from the previous one and was followed by heavy flooding. People living in affected areas have no time to recover from one emergency to the next. One outcome of this is increased migration towards urban centres. 2019 census data indicates that 60% of Nairobi's 4.3 million people live in slums. The provision of basic services such as health, education and sanitation is failing. Politically, devolution of power has been extended to county level, however implementation still faces key challenges. We are committed to addressing the root causes of poverty in urban and rural programme areas by strengthening the capacity of public service providers to meet basic needs and by enhancing the income and well-being of the extremely poor.
Latest achievements
Milan Pact Award
Health and nutrition
Emergency detection
Sori waters her kitchen garden which she has grown with the support of Concern. Photo: Jennifer Nolan / Concern Worldwide
Jene Migaliza is a cook at Gatoto Community School in Nairobi where we help to provide two meals every day to over 1,000 students. Photo: Jennifer Nolan / Concern Worldwide
Scholastica Mbinya (31) with her youngest child, Francisca. Photo: Peter Caton/ Concern Worldwide.
Students from the Concern Makerspace Programme in Nairobi University. Students here work on ways to make medical devices more accessible in the developing world.
Photo: Gavin Douglas / Concern Worldwide
A farmer's son raises his arms trying to chase away desert locusts from his crops, in Kitui county, Kenya. Photo: Ben Curtis/AP/Shutterstock
Jane's story is heartbreakingly similar to Margret's and she was forced to watch her little boy, Mark Moses go hungry. Photo: Ed Ram / Concern Worldwide
Atiir collects firewood every day to make money to feed her family. Recurrent drought has made it her only means of survival. Photo: Gavin Douglas / Concern Worldwide.
How we're helping Kenya
We are working hard to combat suffering and build resilience in Kenya. We are doing this by implementing programmes which will strengthen resilience, respond to emergencies and provide access to quality education.
Access to services
Food security
Improved governance
Michael Darragh Macauley programme visit
To announce Dublin inter-county footballer Michael Darragh Macauley becoming a Concern ambassador, the five-time All-Ireland winning star visited our education programmes in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.
Concern Kenya: Michael Darragh MacAuley
Alexi Lubomirski programme visit
Royal wedding photographer and Concern ambassador Alexi Lubomirski visited our education and nutrition programmes in Kenya. This video shows the inspiring people he met in Nairobi.
Fashion photographer Alexi Lubomirski visits Concern KenyaLatest from Kenya
Accountability
