Kenya

Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo Kenyatta led Kenya from independence in 1963 until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but were viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President Moi stepped down in December 2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai Kibaki, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), defeated KANU candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform. Kibaki's NARC coalition splintered in 2005 over the constitutional review process. Government defectors joined with KANU to form a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement, which defeated the government's draft constitution in a popular referendum in November 2005. Kibaki's reelection in December 2007 brought charges of vote rigging from ODM candidate Raila Odinga and unleashed two months of violence in which as many as 1,500 people died. UN-sponsored talks in late February produced a powersharing accord bringing Odinga into the government in the restored position of prime minister.

Population (1): 37,953,838

Religions (1): Protestant 45%, Roman Catholic 33%, Muslim 10%, indigenous beliefs 10%, other 2% note: a large majority of Kenyans are Christian, but estimates for the percentage of the population that adheres to Islam or indigenous beliefs vary widely

HIV/AIDS 2003 estimates (1):
Adult prevalence rate: 6.7%
People living with HIV/AIDS: 1.2 million
HIV/AIDS deaths: 150,000

Life expectancy in years (2): 49

Annual per capita GNI U.S. dollars (3): $580.00

Total number of orphans (4): 2,300,000

Education:
Children completing primary school (5): Male – 81%; Female – 85%
Children enrolled in secondary school (6): Male – 50%; Female – 48%

Number of physicians per 100,000 people (7): 14

(1) CIA – The World Factbook
(2) (5) (6) Source: State of the World Population 2007
(3) Source: World Bank World Development Indicator Database, 1 July 2007, 2006 estimates
(4) Sources: UNICEF Africa’s OVCs affected by AIDS 2005
(7) WHO Human Resources for Health

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Cottages at the Rafiki Village Kenya

ROS serving in Kenya

Julie Ellington
Carolyn and Doug Koepke
Betsy and Tom Kreamer
Yeen-Lan Lam
Primrose Pennicooke
Elisabeth Shabouk
Judy Stokes

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