Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the new forms of solidarity and care that are forged, maintained and reinforced at the intersection of the Kenya’s national health insurance, formal and informal social protection mechanisms and mobile/digital technology.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last decade, the Kenya government has continued to expand the country’s national health insurance (National Hospital Insurance Fund) to include those in the informal sector as well as providing free maternal health care and health insurance subsidies for the vulnerable populations such as the beneficiaries of cash transfer schemes and elderly persons. Although the national health insurance is framed within the language of financial protection and state responsibility to care, the health insurance does not offer reliable access to healthcare. In many cases, patients and health workers navigate both mundane and persistent complexities, disappointments, frustrations and failure of the national health insurance through different solidarities: ethnic and kinship based, and patronage networks. The increasing digitization of Kenya’s economy through mobile money technology over the last decade has transformed these forms of solidarities/networks of care in different ways. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Kenya, this paper explores the new forms of solidarity and care that are forged, maintained and reinforced at the intersection of the country’s national health insurance, formal and non-formal social protection mechanisms, and mobile/digital technology.