The Kenya Business and Economics Times

  According to a United Nations report, it estimated that throughout their life, 1 out of every 3 women experiences physical abuse or sexual violence from their intimate relationship or from a non-partner.   As the world marked the International day for Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 th November, it is not lost to the world over, that the lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic led to an increase in cases of Violence Against Women (VAW). This point is buttressed by a recent UN women research based on information from 13 nations that shows that 2 out of every 3 women have faced some type of abuse since the start of the pandemic. In Nigeria, the number of reported cases of gender-violence linked to lockdowns increased by more than 130% while reported cases in Croatia jumped by a whopping 228% during the first five months of 2020 compared to 2019. The ramifications of VAW are wide and far reaching. Not only does VAW imperil the welfare of women, girls and their f...

  Yesterday, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) released the much awaited first and second quarters’ 2021 gross domestic product reports. Though we are yet to scale pre-pandemic levels, the report paints an economy that is slowly but surely recovering. From the report, in the first quarter of 2021 economic growth decelerated to 0.7% compared to 4.4% in the corresponding period in 2020 due to the emergence of COVID-19 in March 2020. Conversely, the real GDP (GDP figure that is adjusted for inflation) grew by 10.1% in the second quarter as compared to a 4.7% diminution in the same period in 2020. This growth is ascribed to the easing of COVID-19 containment measures and the gradual re-opening of the economy that has seen the economy show signs of recovery. Agriculture, fishing and forestry activities reported decreased activity in the beginning of 2021 and further went ahead to post a decrease of 0.9% in the second quarter as compared to a growth of   4.9% in the...

  In recent times, the Kenyan shilling has been on a somewhat appalling downward spiral. By the close of trading at the Nairobi Securities exchange on 3 rd November 2021, the Kenyan Shilling had plummeted to its lowest level ever against the dollar, closing the day at 111.49.October was the shilling’s fifth straight month of depreciation, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. According to a recent Cytonn Investment report, in the just ended Q3’2021 financial quarter, the Kenyan shilling depreciated against the dollar by 2.4% to close at kshs110.5 compared to Q2’2021’s kshs107.9. On a Year to Date (YTD) basis, the Kenyan shilling depreciated against the dollar by 1.2%.     What then is the reason for this depreciation? Normally, there are four fundamental factors that affect currency performance namely; jThe balance of payments, government debt, a country’s monetary policy and the amount of forex reserves.   The Current and Capital account balances influen...