The Big Four Agenda and Its Viability

The Big Four Agenda and Its Viability

Introduction

            The Big Four Agenda are legacy projects of President Uhuru Kenyatta that outlines his focus on his final presidential term. The Big Four Agenda aims at improving the living standards of Kenyans regardless of their social status. (Mutune 2019, p.1) These pillars include food security and nutrition, affordable housing, enhancing manufacturing, and affordable universal health care. The objective of this development plan is to avail solutions to the numerous socio-economic problems experienced by the Kenyan citizens. This write up locates its argument on the contents of the Big Four Agenda and the possibility of achieving them.

Food security and nutrition

To begin with, the government of Kenya seeks to achieve food and nutrition security for all Kenyans by the year two thousand and twenty-two. To meet this goal, the government has focused on three vast areas which are: enhancing large-scale production, giving a booster shot to smallholder productivity and reducing the cost of food. However, food security does not mean the physical availability of any single commodity. Still, it must be put into consideration if the product is accessible in terms of affordability in adequate quantities with all essential nutrients factored in. Therefore, this means that solving the food security issue from a production point of view, while overlooking the purchasing power of the people does not solve the food security problem. Additionally, due to high fuel prices, poor transport, and market infrastructure in Kenya, food from the production zones either does not reach the ones who need it or it reaches them at an excessively high cost. Consequently, the conditions are threatening the chances of achieving this initiative.

Affordable housing

            Secondly, the issue of housing is another challenge that the government aims to realize its solution. In this regard, in the year 2017, the government launched Kenya’s Affordable Housing Programme. This Programme seeks to deliver half-million homes for over five years. The Affordable Housing Programme (APH) involves several incentives to facilitate the realization of affordable housing in Kenya. However, there have been some setbacks to the delivery of this initiative of affordable housing. They include, among others, an inadequate supply of serviced land at affordable prices in urban areas where land prices have been increasing at a vast rate. Also, some parts of the country lack the necessary infrastructure for development, for example, power, proper road, and sewerage services. (Arucy 2019, p.595). Thirdly it’s essential to note that only high- income leveled people can access mortgages in Kenya. High-interest rates and deposits required to limit the borrowers.

Affordable universal health care

            Thirdly, economic development is not achievable unless a country’s population is healthy. Consequently, the Kenyan government gears up to achieve comprehensive health coverage by the end of the second term of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Universal health coverage means every citizen has access to quality health services without being constrained to financial hardship. To achieve this goal, a Health Benefits Package Advisory Panel was set up, which incorporated the ministry of health, county governments, and the public to define the Health Benefits Package and draw the starting point the journey of Universal Health Care. Secondly, the ministry is doing benchmarking with prosperous countries as far as the health sector is concerned, such as Ethiopia and Rwanda. The probability of achieving this goal is very high. All that’s needed is to ensure we keep those with sticky fingers out of the Universal Health Care pot.

Enhancing manufacturing

Manufacturing is a prime zone in the economic development of Kenya. The role manufacturing plays in contributing to national output and exports and the role the manufacturing sector plays in job creation. Production is one of the particular ways of a country to shoot up the count of people earning substantial wages and salaries because of the strong linkages with other sectors in the economy. The government aims to attract investors who will establish organizations that will create job opportunities for the youths. However, the presence of unfavorable government will discourage investors from venturing into the sector.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the essay has exhaustively expounded on the Big Four Agenda and its viability. We have seen that the possibility of achieving the Big Four Agenda is jeopardy due to several factors that call for immediate address. Among these factors is the regeneration of policies to come up with those which will encourage investors to invest in our economy and minimizing the loopholes from which the corrupt people smuggle money.

Reference

Arucy, Ketty. “AFFORDABLE HOUSING POLICY IN KENYA: THE BIG FOUR TRANSFORMATION AGENDA 2017–2022.” Management and Economics Journal (2019): pp. 593-596.

Mutune, Fellis N. “The Place of an Applied Linguist in Actualising the Big Four Agenda.” (2019).