In Kenya, bribery isn’t just a moral issue—it’s an occupational hazard. Whether you’re a student, a government clerk, or running a roadside kiosk, your chances of encountering corruption vary wildly. According to the Kenya Bribery Index 2025, your job title may just predict your exposure to extortion. And while some are largely insulated, others are paying the price—literally.

Kenya’s political old guard just got hit with something they didn’t see coming: emojis, data bundles, and a generation raised on YouTube. As the country reels from the Gen Z–led protests of 2024 and a powerful commemoration protest on June 25th 2025, one thing is clear—Kenya’s future is now fluent in hashtags, literacy, and civic tech fluency. And no, this isn’t just about TikTok videos and Instagram Lives. This is about a structural shift in how governance meets its match in

Debt has always worn a suit of irony—designed to bring growth, it often ends up choking the very system it sought to elevate. Kenya, like several of its African peers, now finds itself not merely servicing debt, but practically hosting it as the guest of honour at the fiscal dinner table. A recent UNCTAD report has put it plainly: Africa’s most vulnerable economies are not just paying interest—they’re bleeding revenue into it.

Yesterday, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi presented his first national budget under the Kenya Kwanza administration, unveiling a bold KSh 4.3 trillion spending plan for the 2025/2026 financial year. But with only KSh 3.34 trillion in expected revenue, the numbers reveal a clear tension: ambition is outpacing affordability. The nearly KSh 900 billion gap will be bridged by debt, a choice that underscores both urgency and risk.

In 2020, if ten patients walked into a Kenyan health facility, nearly two of them were battling malaria. Fast forward to 2024, and that number has plummeted—now, just one in twenty patients presents with the disease. This remarkable turnaround is captured in data from the Economic Survey 2025, which shows malaria cases falling from 19.1% of all reported illnesses in 2020 to just 5.1% in 2024.

Kenya’s public university system is approaching a financial cliff edge. Between 2021 and 2024, public university enrolment grew by 14%—from 448,000 to 522,000 students—while private university numbers declined by 5%. The shift signals growing reliance on public institutions. But as the number of students rises, the financial foundations beneath these universities are rapidly eroding.

In a country where government opacity once seemed entrenched, something remarkable is happening: local administrations are finally letting the light in. Kenya’s County Budget Transparency Survey 2024 (CBTS), under the banner Open Budgets, Open Dialogue, by Bajeti Hub, reveals a dramatic leap in fiscal openness. Just four years ago, most counties failed to publish even half of their legally required budget documents. Today, that tide has turned. The share of key documents made

Kenya has made meaningful strides toward cleaner cooking energy. According to the 2023/2024 Kenya Housing Survey, 34.4% of households now use clean fuels like LPG, electricity, ethanol, and biogas. Urban areas have seen the sharpest shift—71.5% of city households rely on clean energy, with Nairobi leading at a near-universal 95.1%. Yet behind these headline gains lies a far grimmer reality: rural Kenya remains shrouded in smoke.

In the fight against climate change, the most dramatic transformations often unfold quietly. Kenya, with little fanfare, has staged an energy revolution. In 2024, nearly 92% of the country’s electricity came from renewable sources—a feat that puts many industrial giants to shame.

Kenya’s carbon market is booming, and one category dominates: Household & Community projects. These initiatives—ranging from improved cookstoves to water purification systems—deliver dual benefits: reducing emissions while improving lives. But they’re also carbon goldmines. Just six top projects have issued over 14 million credits, accounting for nearly 40% of Gold Standard credits in Kenya, cementing the country’s position as a regional leader.

In the world of wildlife conservation, “endangered” is not just a label—it is a countdown. Species earn the title when their numbers fall so low that extinction in the wild becomes a plausible outcome. By that measure, Kenya’s mountain bongo and hirola antelopes have spent the past two decades flirting with disappearance. Now, thanks to careful intervention, both are beginning to multiply quietly, cautiously, but undeniably.

Since 2021, tourism for leisure has overtaken business as the dominant reason for visiting Kenya—a trend that continues to gain ground. In 2020, Kenya’s tourism industry—like most of the world’s—was brought to its knees by the pandemic. Visitor-days plummeted to just 4.7 million, with business travel (2.6 million visitor-days) narrowly ahead of holiday travel (2 million). But by 2021, as international mobility resumed, a shift emerged. Holiday-related visits jumped to 5.5

In Nairobi’s private hospitals, maternity wards now resemble surgical units. Soft overhead lights hum quietly, monitors beep steadily, and babies enter the world not through labour pains, but via precision incisions. In Kenya, a growing number of mothers are giving birth under the knife — and it’s becoming a costly trend. Over the past four years, Caesarean sections have been climbing steadily, carving out a bigger share of the country's deliveries.

Despite a modest dip, investor confidence and facilitation reforms signal long-term gains. At first glance, a decline in proposed manufacturing investments—from KSh 24.5 billion in 2023 to KSh 17.4 billion in 2024—might cause some hand-wringing in Nairobi’s policy corridors. But read between the numbers, and a different story emerges—one of quiet recalibration rather than retreat. The Kenya Investment Authority (Ken Invest), the nation’s main investment promotion agency

Kenya’s economy has been on a remarkable journey over the last five years, but beneath the surface of headline growth lies a fiscal balancing act that few can ignore. How does a country with burgeoning revenues manage the relentless climb of public spending? More importantly, can Kenya steer this fiscal ship without capsizing under the weight of its own ambitions?

Between 2020 and 2024, the average retail prices of Petrol (Super), Diesel, and Kerosene surged. Petrol jumped from KES 103.25 to KES 191.76 per litre, Diesel from KES 93.91 to KES 168.38, and Kerosene from KES 84.55 to KES 178.32. In percentage terms, Kerosene prices more than doubled (up 111%), while Petrol and Diesel nearly doubled, climbing 86% and 79%, respectively.

Kenya's merchandise trade reached a new high in 2024, hitting KSh 3.82 trillion, up 5.5% from the previous year. But beneath the headline growth lies a persistent structural vulnerability: Kenya continues to import far more than it exports. Despite a 10.4% rise in exports, imports outpaced them in absolute terms, expanding by KSh 94.3 billion—effectively erasing much of the export gain. The result? A trade deficit of KSh 1.59 trillion, barely improved from 2023’s KSh 1.60 tri

Kenya has long positioned itself as East Africa’s digital powerhouse—boasting a thriving tech scene, world-famous mobile banking systems, and an increasingly online public sector. But new data from the 2025 Economic Survey suggests that behind the country’s digital rise lies an unspoken emergency: a cybercrime wave of staggering proportions.

Kenya has turned the humble act of wheat farming into a spectacle of modern economic irony. The latest figures from the Economic Survey 2025 reveal a curious case: while local wheat production dawdled at 312,200 metric tonnes in 2024, imports swaggered into the national pantry at a whopping 2.3 million tonnes. That’s right — Kenya imported seven times more wheat than it produced.

In the decades since the early 1990s, Kenya’s banking landscape has been transformed—not by revolutions, but by mergers. According to Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) records, 57 mergers and acquisitions have been approved between 1989 and 2024. These transactions tell a broader story of regulatory reform, economic cycles, and institutional adaptation.