By Prof John Harbeson
I devote my column this month to consideration in some depth of a remarkable finding by Afrobarometer about public opinion in Kenya on the importance of environmental protection and addressing rapidly advancing climate change. The finding constitutes an early glimpse at partial results of Afrobarometer’s ninth round of surveys, currently being analyzed, of citizens’ opinions concerning political and economic circumstances in the nearly forty African countries. This finding is that Kenyans want the government to prioritize environmental protection at the expense of job creation.
These results, published in late July, come when, at this writing, the Kenya government and the leading opposition party are about to attempt dialogue again on a range of critical, long-standing divisive issues that have recently provoked sustained, often violent opposition. These issues have included the high cost of living, a proposed tax hike, allegedly flawed electoral processes stemming most immediately from the 2022 general election, and insufficient focus on the plight of the poor. In addition, Inflation has remained high at over 7 percent, and public debt has soared to 67 percent of GDP.
This new finding suggests a basis for common ground between government and opposition on perhaps our time’s most critical public policy problem. The Afrobarometer survey reported that 75 percent of Kenya respondents said, “the government should focus more on preventing pollution and protecting the environment, even if this means there will be fewer jobs or other disruptions to our daily lives.” When the initial analysis of Round 9 surveys is completed, it will be very interesting to learn how the Kenya finding compares with those of other countries. Apparently not included in the survey protocol, however, was a question concerning how citizens might assess the likelihood that effective environmental action would, in fact, be job-creating rather than job-diminishing.
Across major demographic categories, all Kenyans closely supported this finding at the same level. Men supported the finding at 76 percent, women at 74 percent. Rural and urban citizens agreed at identical 75 percent levels. Those not experiencing lived poverty did support the finding at a somewhat higher 84 percent level. In comparison, those experiencing more severe poverty levels came in at a somewhat lower 70 percent level of agreement. Those at different levels of education were all but of one mind at between 74 percent and 77 percent. Those with no formal education lagged a bit at 65 percent. Citizens in different age cohorts closely agreed at between 71 percent and 75 percent; those in the 36-45 age group were something of an outlier at an 82 percent support level.
Although the surveys indicated that Kenyans expect the government to prioritize environmental protection at the possible expense of job creation at the same time. 55 percent believed that ordinary citizens should be primarily responsible for reducing environmental pollution. Moreover, 25 percent thought the local government should bear that responsibility, compared to only 10 percent who assigned that role to the national government. The national-local government balance may reflect in complex ways citizens’ generally positive experience of the 47 county governments created by the 2010 Constitution to replace more centralized government during and since colonial times. Additionally, this strong local focus on support for environmental action suggests an important available basis for resilient, supportive civil society ecological activism.
Kenyans’ apparent overarching commitment to environmental protection sits somewhat uneasily, however, with their assessments of the seriousness and immediacy of the problem. The same Afrobarometer survey found that only 53 percent of Kenyans acknowledged having heard about climate change, while only 49 percent considered pollution to be either a “somewhat” or “very serious” problem, as distinct from a “not very” or “not at all” serious matter. Possibly, this disconnect reflected differential awareness of the different dimensions of the overall problem. Thirty-one percent viewed Kenya’s longstanding and recently increasing deforestation as the country’s most serious environmental problem, followed by trash disposal (including plastics) at 25 percent, sanitation and water pollution at 14 percent each, and air pollution at 6 percent.
Even as three out of four Kenyans believed environmental protection should be prioritized over job creation while ordinary citizens should assume primary responsibility for environmental protection, a nearly identical percentage (74 percent) believed that the government should be doing “much more” to limit pollution, another 17 percent thinking it should do ”somewhat more.”
Finally, Kenyans were nearly equally divided on the quality of governmental performance (presumably both local and national) on environmental protection and reducing all forms of pollution. Fifty percent assessed the government as “doing well or fairly well,” while 47 percent believed it was doing “fairly or very poorly.”
In the background of the importance to Kenyans of environmental action is Kenya’s status as a partially free, relatively wholly free, and democratic country by most measures. To a significant extent, Kenya’s progress in environmental protection is likely to be both cause and consequence of the extent of its future democratic progress.
— Prof Harbeson is a professor of Political Science Emeritus and a professorial lecturer for the African Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University
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