Can Kenya achieve the First World dream?

Our latest leadership conversation appears to have cantered on if, and when, Kenya moves from third to first world. 

In decrying our “average” national thinking, President William Ruto tells us he has a plan to get us there by 2055 or thereabouts.  In dismissing this idea under his incumbency, our amorphous “united opposition” wonders where this latest brainwave suddenly emerged from.  This is the trouble when government is basically run as a permanent electoral campaign. 

As former US President George Bush Jr once observed, it's the difference between “who gets to do what” (politics) and “the doing of the what” (governance). We excel on the first, not second. 

This is not to say that the President is wrong in calling for our greater national ambition. But he makes these promises within two contextual timelines.  First, if we think of “third world to first”, we are in the last planning round (as Treasury has told us) of Kenya Vision 2030, an idea we adapted from the East Asian tigers.  In other words, this is the time to think about what its successor vision needs to look like.  The starting point here might be an evaluation of where we should be versus where we are; and what the gap looks like.  Here is a broadly illustrative picture. 

If we indexed national GDP at Sh100 in 2007, then real GDP should have been Sh467 in 2024 having hit double digit growth in 2013.  However, successive, and less ambitious, five-year Medium-Term Plans, reduced this 2024 number to Sh340; 30 per cent less.  The real 2024 number was Sh210; basically less than half of the dream set out a decade and a half ago.  Just for the record, the 2027 numbers would be Sh622 (dream), Sh415 (plan) and Sh244 (actual, assuming we grow at five percent a year from 2025 to 2027).  Sh622 is an upper middle-income economy. 

In its introduction, the Fourth Medium-Term Plan (MTP IV) offers a broad snapshot of where we were by 2022, with Vision 2030 having been launched in 2008.  GDP per capita performance below the average for lower and upper middle- income economies.  Higher infant mortality and lower male and female life expectancy.  A disproportionately greater share of agriculture and lesser share of manufacturing in an economy with comparatively lower internet use (not connectivity).  Yes, there has been progress, but consider this as part of our 2022 “baseline”. 

The second contextual timeline is political, and constitutional.  Today is 1,155 days (or 165 weeks) since Ruto was sworn into office, and he only has 637 days (or 91 weeks) to the next election on August 10, 2027.  So it is reasonable to ask if this promise starts now, or is work in progress.  

Of course, “From Third World to First” was the book title that Lee Kuan Yew accorded to his well-documented description of Singapore’s own transformation over the course of a generation.

Hence the “New Singapore” perspectives that Kenyans on X prefer to give to these promises. 

Indeed, someone actually asked Grok, X’s Artificial Intelligence engine, how long it would take for Kenya to catch up to Singapore, which isn’t standing still.  Using average GDP per capita growth as a proxy for standard of living improvements, the answer came back at around 100 years!  That’s just the math; beneath it lies a chasm between third world politics and first world governance. 

To be honest, these “first world/third world” monikers are not particularly useful if you are living in the 21st century.  They speak to a mindset that comes from the middle parts of the 20th century.  You could say the same about “developed” vs “developing” countries. Where does China fall? 

This is not to mean that we settle for low ambition.  And why not try and pursue a positive take today?  If for example, you step away from the noisy rhetoric, it is possible to find, even with this Kenya Kwanza administration, one or two signs that it’s not all tumult and turmoil in the office; that there’s some turnaround and transformational thinking and action that may be happening. 

Take recent discussions at the 2025 NCBA Economic Forum held at the end of October, where the chief guest, as has been the case in the recent past, was Dr David Ndii, the Chairperson of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA).  Hosted for the bank’s customers, and run online, this event always offers a great opportunity to understand government’s thinking on the economy in a way that is neither infested by official blather nor infected by political bluster. 

As is normally the case, Ndii’s presentation was essentially in two parts: a picture of where the economy is today (and why), and a picture of where it’s going (and how).  The language has changed over the past year – in 2024 turbulence and transformation were the by-words, in 2025 its stabilization and sustainability.  The pathway seems a little clearer now: macro prices (inflation, exchange, interest) have stabilized on the back of supply-side interventions in agriculture as well as policy actions that have improved the foreign exchange balance. The forward plan rests on fiscal consolidation on the revenue and expenditure/financing side, sustaining productivity improvements in agriculture with a strong lens on livestock, and investment attraction. 

Government appears to be more bullish on our forward growth prospects than the market.  What we have missed most since the days of NARC is an actual investment program to support the economic agenda, though a fairly generic investment strategy has been drafted by this regime. 

It is the nuance in the presentation that was most interesting.  First, that the combo of artificial intelligence and digital penetration offers Kenya a unique opportunity to painlessly close tax gaps and seamlessly enhance the taxpayer experience.  Second, the pursuit of new and innovative service delivery models – currently in agriculture - as key to reforming the expenditure side.  

Third, the establishment, as promised in their manifesto, of an off-debt, national infrastructure fund from the proceeds of privatization while crowding in private investment.  Areas of focus for this fund include water, irrigation and agribusiness infrastructure, energy and transport (highways, JKIA expansion, SGR completion and LAPPSET progression).  Most significantly, the fund will only do bankable projects. These are three basic examples of ambitious initiatives currently underway. It doesn’t mean the end of concessional debt or aid, it will be better targeted at social projects. 

Yet, as Ndii repeatedly tells us, Kenya’s upper middle-income economy ambition must be more market-facing than development partner-facing.  Think investment grade credit rating or journey to self-reliance.  This is not to ignore Kenya’s many basic challenges that still persist.  But, without necessarily getting into the language of third to first world, we need to expand high quality conversations such as this excellent NCBA one into larger and more inclusive ones – even at the level of sectoral, industry, thematic, spatial or geographical, deep-dives - as we chart our future.