Kenya is an emerging middle-income country and has one of the best performing economies in sub-Saharan Africa. It serves as the commercial hub for East Africa, with coastal ports that allow for imports to be received and transported to landlocked neighbors. Kenya relies heavily on imported food and farm products, much of which the United States produces competitively. In 2018, Kenya imported $2.5 billion of agricultural products from the world. While the country’s global imports of food and agricultural products has trended upwards, its imports from the United States have remained steady, resulting in a reduced U.S. market share as...

Objective:To sustainably reduce hunger, malnutrition, and poverty in Kenya through inclusive agriculture-led growth.

Approach:Linking rural dairy and horticulture farmers to more competitive markets, fostering an inclusive system—especially for women and youth—and supporting a policy environment that enables economic growth.

Impact:Through the activity, 39,598 individuals have applied improved agricultural technologies or practices, and over $10 million in sales has been achieved by supported farms and businesses. The project has engaged 3,800 private sector partners.

Kenya’s real gross domestic product is projected to grow by 5.7% in 2019, a slight decrease from the estimated 5.8% growth experienced in 2018, according to the new World Bank Kenya Economic Update. While the medium-term growth outlook is stable, the report notes that recent threats of drought and continued subdued private sector investment could drag down growth in the near-term. The growth forecast for 2020 stands at 5.9%.  

The Kenyan economy rebounded in 2018 and economic activity in the first quarter of 2019 was healthy, although emerging drought conditions could curtail GDP growth for the remainder of the year. The economy expanded by 6.0 percent in the first three quarters of 2018 compared to 4.7 percent during the same period in 2017 driven by strong private consumption in part due to improved income from agricultural harvests in 2018, remittance inflows, and lower food prices. The Bank's GDP growth estimate for 2018 is about 5.8 percent. A strong pick-up in economic activity in Q1...

African agricultural markets are characterized by low farmer revenues and high consumer food prices. Many have worried that this wedge is partially driven by imperfect competition among intermediaries. This paper provides experimental evidence from Kenya on intermediary market structure. Randomized cost shocks and demand subsidies are used to identify a structural model of market competition. Estimates reveal that traders act consistently with joint profit maximization and earn median markups of 39 percent. Exogenously induced firm entry has negligible effects on prices, and low take-up of subsidized entry offers implies large fixed costs. We estimate that traders...