Institute of Social Transformation

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    Rural Urban Migration In Kenya
    (Tangaza University College, 1997-04) Bozza, Claudio
    The process of rural-urban migration now under way in Kenya involves a rapid shift of people towards the larger towns, especially Nairobi and Mombasa. The movement is massive and involves all kinds of people-young, old, male, female, the educated and the illiterate, the landless, and those with large holdings. Moreover, in the last couple of years, the degree of migration has increased very rapidly with the level of educational attainment, and Nairobi attracts a very large share of those with secondary or higher education. Robert Mc Namara former President of World Bank said: "The cities are filling up and urban unemployment steadily grows... The 'marginal men', the wretched strugglers for survival on the fringes of farm and city, may already number more than half a billion, by 1990 two billion. Can we imagine any human order surviving with so gross a mass of misery piling up at its baser.' And again, Edgar 0. Edwards, reports on Employment in Developing Countries said: "We are firmly persuaded that the most fundamental and promising attract on employment problems in development countries is in efforts to redress the present urban bias in development strategies".2 The issue of migration is not only a challenge to Kenya, but it is a real problem to all African countries as well. Kenya, one of the African nations, gives me an opportunity to research and reflect into the issue, and to analyse its repercussion on this important social phenomenon. The dictionary of Social Science, defines migration as the spatial mobility or geographic mobility of individuals or groups of people, which has distinguishing characteristics such as: a change of usual place of residence across a defined administrative boundary or an origin and a destination, with an interval or duration of residence.3 The concept of migration excludes moves made by persons without a fixed place of residence i.e. nomads, or short-term trips which involve no change of residence, such as seasonal moves, journey to work or to school. Therefore, those who have moved from their place of origin or previous residence to other places are known as migrants, and those who remain at the original residence being non-migrants or stayers, are not considered migrants. However, one may wonder why I chose this topic of rural-urban migration. Since I am a Missionary Brother in the Catholic Church and undertaking Social Ministry course, it is my duty and responsibility to understand and to reflect upon this social phenomenon which is affecting so many people in the country where 1 am called to work and serve as Social Minister. The other important thing to note is that the question of migration is a problem which affects our present generation; therefore, if it is not addressed now, we missionaries are not inserting ourselves into the realty of people we are living with. Such a mistake could be a disastrous social affair for next generation. On the other hand, if it is addressed today, there is hope that this problem can be lessened in the coming future and our participation as missionaries will be recognised by the people. These are the main reasons why I decided to delve into this issue of rural-urban migration in Kenya. In addressing this issue of migration in Kenya, I am I am going to use the see, judge, and act methodology. Hence, to help myself applying this methodology: I have used some sources of information which fall, at any time in one or the other of the above categories. The first part of this paper shows the present situation and its phenomenon with the following sections: 1) the characteristics of the migrants 2) motivations and causes for migrations 3) the impact of migration 4) general considerations regarding the impact of labour migration. From this general overview of the situation in Kenya, the paper focuses on the reasons causing the issue in presenting the aspects of 1) migration and urban unemployment 2) structural influence on rural-urban migration 3) urban informal sector and migrants. The third part of the paper is tries to identify some concrete aspects in order to promote integral rural development with the following sections: 1) reduce imbalances in ruralurban employment opportunities 2) elimination factor price distortion 3) integral rural development. Finally, I conclude with my own personal reflection and summary. I am aware that this research paper does not address every aspect of the issue of migration in Kenya. However, this can be a starting point for myself and those who wish to do more research on this challenging issue.