In a report released by the World Bank on Kenya’s poverty and equity assessment 2023, the country’s robust economic growth over the past decade has outperformed its Sub-Saharan Africa peers.
Kenya bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic with a 7.6 % growth beating the Sub-Saharan Africa average growth.
This growth is majorly credited to the services sector driving almost 70 per cent of the total increase in economic output in the country.
The report indicated that out of the 10 fastest-growing sectors from 2012 to 2021, all except construction were services.
“The services sector is increasingly becoming an engine of economic growth in Kenya. In the decade to 2021, services activity drove about 70 per cent of the total increase in economic output and, of the 10 fastest-growing sectors from 2012 to 2021, all except construction were services,” the report read in part.
Over the same period, the country successfully translated the growth of the economy into a reduction of poverty. The rate of poverty declined until the emergence of COVID-19.