Social Protection for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children in Kenya: Initiatives, Opportunities and Challenges

HIV/AIDS, conflicts and other crises have swelled the number of OVC's in sub - Saharan Africa, thereby threatening the realization of the Millennium Development Goals in the areas of Education, Health, Nutrition, and Poverty reduction. In Kenya, Social Protection is explicitly prioritized in Vision 2030, the newly promulgated Constitution of Kenya 2010 and in the National Affirmative Action Policies. Between 2005 and 2010, expenditure on Social Protection rose from Ksh. 33.4 billion to Ksh57.1 billion, which is equivalent to 2.28 per cent GDP.The above notwithstanding, discourse analysis involving a critical review of existing literature indicates that Poverty and vulnerability remain high in the country. Hence, clearly, there exists knowledge gaps on the response to the OVC situation, and in Particular, the impact of the various Policies and strategies aimed at interventions for the welfare of OVC's in the country. This paper attempts to synthesize current knowledge on the models and practice of policies targeting OVC's in Kenya with a view to bringing out discontinuities in order to inform future initiatives, especially those emerging from the framework of the newly promulgated constitution. Data was obtained mainly from secondary sources including: Sessional Papers, National Development Plans and Statistical abstracts. It is recommended that: Development of a Management Information System to capture information about OVC's, Strengthening Community Based support systems, Mainstreaming social protection in the programmes of all Government Ministries as opposed to the current six, Providing training and facilitation alongside the financial means to care - givers in vulnerable families, Prioritizing provision of Psycho -social support in addition to the material support currently offered, and reflecting OVC as a priority special needs in all sectoral policy planning and strategy process will go a long way in guarding against the escalating crisis of the vulnerable children which threatens to tear at the very fabric of childhood.