Africa Lead facilitated the Resilience and Sustainable Escapes from Poverty in Kenya Learning Event on April 18, 2018 in Nairobi. Seventy-eight participants from donor agencies, implementing partner organizations, PREG partner organizations, research institutions, the national government, and United States Agency for International Development Kenya and East Africa Mission (USAID/KEA) staff attended the half-day event. Tina Dooley-Jones, the Acting Mission Director for USAID/KEA and Dr. Johnson Irungu, the Director for Agriculture and Crops Management at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, opened the learning event.
The main objective of the event was to create awareness and disseminate widely the study findings of a research on Resilience and Sustainable Escapes from Poverty in Kenya, commissioned by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network and supported by USAID Center for Resilience. The learning event created a platform for stakeholders to deliberate and have a better understanding of the drivers of sustained and transitory poverty escapes in Kenya and use the information to draw out policy and tailor programming towards eradicating extreme poverty in Kenya.
Dr. Dooley-Jones, in her opening remarks emphasized that, “three policies namely: social assistance, massive investment in education, and a commitment to pro-poor growth are needed if eradication of extreme poverty is to be achieved and sustained, and all three require a significant global investment and strong country-level leadership.”