The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has released the Gross County Product (GCP) report. This is the inaugural publication which covers estimates from 2013, when the counties started operating to 2017. Gross County Product is a measure of how much each county contributes to Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and may therefore be interpreted as the “County GDP”.
The compilation of GCP is in accordance with international guidelines on estimation of regional gross domestic product. The compilation of report was done with assistance from the World Bank under the Kenya Accountable Devolution Program (KADP) – a multi-donor Trust Fund administered by the Bank and funded by DANIDA, DFID, the European Commission, Finland, Sweden and USAID.
The GCP estimates are meant to address increased demand for economic statistics at county level. The report fills an important gap of official statistics on the economic size of counties, structures of county economies (sectoral contribution) and growth rates. The GCP estimates also show the economic potential of the various counties in different sectors. The report will help address common misconceptions on the size of counties and their contributions to the national GDP. The analytics show that while some counties have a small contribution to the national GDP, they have greater potential for faster rate of growth and potential for catch-up with the dominant contributors.
The enactment of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 led to county-oriented development planning that in turn resulted in increased demand for county-level data. Economic statistics to guide policy and planning at the county level are now needed for measures including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), economic growth, per capita income, sectoral growth and employment. It is in response to some of these needs that KNBS embarked on the compilation of estimates of Gross County Product in 2017.
The KNBS Director General Mr Zachary Mwangi said “It is important for us to be alive to the fact that information that govern policy formulation at the county level should be informed by county specific data, that reflect how the counties are faring in various aspects of socio-economic development. Since the enactment of the constitution, KNBS has endeavored to produce statistics that are disaggregated by county to the extent possible.”
KNBS intends to be publishing the GCP estimates on an annual basis and has developed a framework for integrating GCP, growth rates and sectoral contribution in the system of national accounts.
The Gross County Product (GCP) report was officially released by Mr. Henry Rotich, Cabinet Secretary, The National Treasury and Planning in the presence of Dr. Julius Muia, Principal Secretary, State Dept. for Planning, The National Treasury and Planning. Also present were senior officials from the Government, World Bank, other development partner’s agencies and the media.