JERICHO, NAIROBI

Background of Jericho and Kiambiu
Jericho and Kiambiu are two of the slums in east part of Nairobi. They are both situated 10 kilometres from the Nairobi Central Business District area. Jericho is an estate built by Nairobi City Council in the late fifties. It was built to accommodate a population of 10000 people but it nowadays accommodates a population of 50000 people; it has about 5000 households with an average of eight people per house hold.

Poverty and Unemployment
Jericho Estate occupies a 3 kilometre square area. Population growth in the area is driven by several factors like high teen pregnancies, unemployed people are not able to move from their parental homes because they are not able to afford to pay rent and also due to rural urban migration. Poverty in the area is driven by several factors like low level of literacy and education, poor governance, corruption, high rate of crime, high rate of HIV/Aids infection and high rate of teen pregnancies. Sixty percent of the youth in the area are unemployed because of several factors like low level of literacy and education, lack of skills to compete effectively in the job market which currently is very competitive based on the recent report that the job market absorb only 25% of the people who graduate from various colleges, lack of information technology skill to source for information from the Internet.

Livelihood
60% of the youth in the area are unemployed 20% of the youth work in factories as casual workers 10% of the youth do business while the rest are still in school, this was captured by a report that was done by Africa population and research center in 2009.

Kambiu Informal Settlement
Kambiu is a prototype of Jericho, it’s a slum created in the late 90’s by people who were not able to pay rent because they were unemployed or earned a salary that is meager making them not to able to pay rent and sustain themselves. They had matured were not able to live in there parental home any more.

The inhabitants of Kiambiu encroached onto this government land that had been preserved for air force expansion has about 3000 households with an average of 8 people per household. It has a population of about 24000 people and still growing. The area coverage of the slum is 1kilometre square and has limited sanitation facilities. Poverty in kiambiu is driven by low literacy level and education, poor governance and corruption.

Daunting Statistics
UNDP rate Kenya as one of the least developed country in Africa with a human index ranking of 126 out 177 with a population of around 40 million and birth rate of 4.3% one of the highest in the world. UNDP report of 2009 states that by 2030, 80% of the population will be living in the cities. The justice system in Kenya has been very weak with shortage of capable judges, prosecutors, public defenders, clerks, interpreter and corruption being a major issue. Judiciary changes have not been implemented as proposal by The Waki in the report.