Kenya's Social Policy Response to Covid-19: Tax Cuts, Cash Transfers and Public Works

Abstract

This report summarises and analyses Kenya’s social policy response to Covid-19. Following the global outbreak of the pandemic, Kenya’s parliament passed several economic and social laws. Tax law amendments aimed to cushion citizens and businesses from the negative effects of the disease by increasing household income for basic needs and enabling businesses to remain in operation. Other significant measures instituted were social protection interventions in the form of cash transfers and public works programmes targeted to poor and vulnerable households. Kenya’s social policy response to the pandemic followed a continuity path of minimal state provisioning. The government’s overreliance on cash transfers as the major form of social policy intervention resulted in an inadequate, exclusionary and ill-suited response.