LeadAfrik
Policy briefs, explainers, and data-informed analysis on Kenya's economy.
The World Bank's 1980 diagnosis of Kenya's manufacturing pattern — protected, import-substituting, oriented to a wider East African market that had just collapsed — and why its prescription, sound as it sounded on paper, set one-sided rules.
“Eastern Africa more than doubled its share of African GDP — 7.4% in 1990, 15.7% in 2024. It was also the only African region that grew through COVID, at +1.2% real on a GDP-weighted basis, against a world average of −2.7%.”
“Of every shilling Kenyans set aside for retirement, more than fifty cents now sits in government paper. The pension industry has stopped being an investment system and started being a financing system.”
The Access to Government Procurement Opportunities programme reserves 30% of public procurement for youth, women, and PWDs. Five years of KNBS data (2018–2022) shows where it's working, where it stalled, and where it's quietly off-balance.
On the third attempt at understanding IS-LM, eight economic models that just went live, and the small bet that if you can move it, you'll remember it.
A quick guide to what's on the platform: 33 finance and economics calculators across personal money, wealth, investing, business, tax, and macro; three structured free courses (SQL for analysts, reading a financial statement, African Macro 101); and the architecture that ties them together.
“For 34 years, across crises, policy reversals, and economic cycles, Kenyan banks have maintained a lending-deposit spread averaging 9.51 percentage points. The institution has always been the winner.”
From 307 agents and 20,000 accounts in 2007 to 473,000 agents and 89.5 million accounts in 2025. Here is what 18 years of CBK data shows about the infrastructure that reshaped Kenya's economy.
10 years of GDP data reveals Kenya's economy more than doubled — but manufacturing is quietly losing ground while agriculture defied development theory.
26 years of Kenya's principal export data (1998–2025) reveal a structural shift: horticulture is overtaking tea, and the export mix is quietly changing.
“Export earnings reached a record KSh 387.6B in 2024, growing at a 7.66% CAGR.”
If Uganda shut its doors, Kenya's exports would fall by close to 40%. 28 years of export data reveal a dramatic structural pivot away from Europe toward East Africa.
“Uganda's export share rose from 16.0% (1998) to 39.5% (2024), a +23.47 percentage point structural increase.”
It's not February, despite Valentine's Day. 15 years of diaspora remittance data reveal December dominance, a COVID shift that never reversed, and a North American corridor worth $2.9B annually.
Kenya's debt has grown 22.9× in 26 years. But the real danger isn't the size — it's the structure. Costs, currency risk, and a narrowing revenue base make Kenya's debt position far more precarious than the headline ratio suggests.
Revenue is diversified but insufficient, deficit financing is mostly domestic, and 81.5% of spending is recurrent. A close reading of Kenya's FY 2025/26 Financial Statement.
“More than 54% of Kenya's government revenue now goes to interest payments.”
“81.5% of spending is recurrent, while only 18.5% goes to development.”
“Sessional Paper No. 10 was Kenya's first major economic policy document — and it remains remarkably revealing.”
According to Kenya’s Financial Statement for FY 2025/26, the government expects to raise KSh 2.75 trillion in ordinary revenue. Of this, income tax, w
Good times bring better times and bad times bring worse times. Unfortunately for Kenya, the debt crisis is pushing good times towards the rearview mir
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