Paper long abstract:

This paper examines whether there is a relationship between NGO activity in Kenya and its poverty profile nationally. It uses survey data from the Welfare Monitoring Survey 111 reported in the Second Poverty Report Kenya 1997 and a recent report by the Kenyan Central Bureau of Statistics that provides spatial maps of poverty in Kenya. This information is analysed with details on NGO activity provided by the NGO Council Directory 2003. Results show little pattern between NGO activity and areas of high poverty incidence and poverty depth nationally. On the contrary, it shows that NGO activity is highly related to urban population even though poverty incidence and poverty depth are comparatively lower, demonstrating a strong urban bias in NGO resource allocation.