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{
    "id": 325836,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/325836/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 506,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "development. We need to get all the variables derived from the study and analysis of our population. Therefore, this Sessional Paper comes at an extremely timely moment. We are now moving towards a devolved system of government, where, again, population, as a statistic, will not only help us determine how the devolved resources should be moved to the grassroots level, but will also help the National Government to determine how to distribute the Equalisation Fund, which will try to address those forms of inequalities that will still arise when devolved resources are distributed to the counties on the basis of 15 per cent per county. Therefore, this particular Sessional Paper sets out a policy framework for accessing of population data and for use of that data for planning and effective national development. Before I go far, I would like to point out three forms of vulnerability we have in this nation, which affect the bulk of the population, and which will be taken into account when we use population statistics for planning purposes for national development with a view to achieving the goals of Vision 2030. These vulnerabilities have to do with famine in the rural areas of Kenya. The population which lives in the rural areas is very vulnerable to famine. Famine is itself a threat to the quality of the population and, eventually, to the productivity of this population. The second form of vulnerability, which we should gather data about among our population, is the vulnerability to disease by poor Kenyans. The demographic and health survey that has been taken throughout the years by the Ministry of Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, and other statistics gathered by the Ministry of Health, will demonstrate that the poor are very vulnerable to various types of diseases. Therefore, if we do not deal with the prevalence of disease among the poor, it will affect the quality of our population, hence the productivity of this population and in the final analysis the economic growth in our nation. So, when we say and appeal that the Government should put measures in place that can help the poor access healthcare and, therefore, the nation can have a better quality population among the poor, it is in the interest of national development and the meeting of the goals of Vision 2030. This is so fundamental that if you look at the history of nations that have made it since the World War II from the status of being poor and under-developed nations to the status of being middle income, or even industrial nations, they have always addressed this form of vulnerability among the poor. This is vulnerability that comes as a result of easy acquisition of certain diseases. In this country, there is no other way to do this other than by establishing universal social health insurance as a way of ensuring that the poor can escape from vulnerability to diseases. The third form of vulnerability that I wanted to talk about is vulnerability to marginalization of the poor. Marginalization is not only in areas where people live in semi-arid and arid lands, and where the problem of marginalized has been prevalent from colonial to present times; even in urban centres, the poor who live in slums are equally marginalized in relation to access to various factors that influence economic growth. There is marginalization to good education and hence upward mobility, marginalization to disease and marginalization with respect to malnutrition. I think this Sessional Paper will provide us with data on the poor in urban areas, where public policy that can affect the development of slums will be very important in including these poor into the central matrix of national development."
}