A block of flats in Kileleshwa, a smart, middle-class area in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Brian Ngugi/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Dec 26 2012 (IPS)

Despite the development boom in state-of-the-art luxury homes in Kenya, the country’s upper class has fallen on hard times and can no longer afford them, according to economic experts here. Instead, Kenya’s formerly wealthy have now become part of the continent’s growing middle class.

According to the African Development Bank, by 2010 Africa’s middle class had risen to an estimated 34 percent of the continent’s population or nearly 350 million people – up from about 126 million or 27 percent in 1980.

Kenya’s middle class was believed to include those people who could afford an average lifestyle and decent and spacious housing, and who were educated and could send their children to affordable private schools, says Macharia Mwangi, an economic consultant in this East African nation.

“That is no longer the case. Areas that had been mapped out for middle class residents are now being inhabited by the upper class, who can no longer maintain their costly lifestyles. However, on their way down, they still have the resources to afford a fairly above-average lifestyle,” says Mwangi.

He adds: “As a result, Kenya’s middle class drive fuel guzzlers, take their children to international schools and are bosses in big companies. As the upper class moves downwards, they still want to live in apartments that are comfortable and modern. This has pushed the price of middle-class housing beyond the reach of those who are rightfully middle class.”

The Knight Frank’s 2011 Prime International Residential Index (PIRI), which monitors price changes across the world’s top-end property markets, shows that Kenya’s luxury real estate market is ahead of every other country globally in terms of growth and profit margins. The value of Nairobi’s prime real estate grew by 25 percent in 2011. On the Kenyan coast property prices went up by 20 percent, higher than other major cities in the world such as Miami, which had a growth of 19.1 percent; London, which had a rate of 12.1 percent; and Shanghai, which had negative growth of -3.4 percent.

However, according to the index, the average price per square metre of real estate in Nairobi is the lowest globally at 1,700 dollars. But foreign investors favour the Kenyan market due to the high profit margins, PIRI says.

Janet Mundia, a property owner in Kileleshwa, a smart, middle-class area in Nairobi says: “Luxury apartments are being built for the local market and … while they are modern and very comfortable, they are still not (of the same) standard of luxury homes.”

“For a two-bedroom luxury apartment you pay about 1,000 dollars a month. For a luxury home it’s twice that or more … Luxury homes are also very spacious. Each house is built separate from the other and the finishings are done to perfection. They also come fully furnished.”

Prices of luxury homes here range from 400,000 dollars to one million dollars and upwards. But locals are not solely snapping up these houses. Only eight percent of the country’s 41.6 million people could afford a mortgage, according to statistics by the World Bank and the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

“Financing remains an issue for the many Kenyans desiring luxury homes. The cost of borrowing keeps rising even as property prices continue to skyrocket. Of late, interest is rising even on non-performing loans,” Andrew Kariuki, an expert in fixed income and money markets at the Diamond Trust Bank, explains.

The upper class is now jostling for affordable land on the outskirts of Nairobi and is building lower-budget, but comfortable, homes.

Kariuki says that those Kenyans who can afford luxury housing are from the diaspora.

“Diaspora remittances are now rivalling Kenya’s leading foreign exchange earners. People in the diaspora are investing heavily in real estate” Kariuki says.

According to CBK, “Kenyans living, working and studying abroad repatriated a total of 891.1 million dollars in 2011.” In comparison the Kenya Tea Development Agency says that tea brought slightly less money into the country – 850 million dollars – in 2011.

According to Danson Mwangangi, an economist and market researcher in East Africa: “We are now experiencing the emergence of a new upper class comprised of the diaspora, expatriates, diplomats, CEO’s of multinational companies and even people in organised crime, such as terrorists.

“Of course there are still Kenyans who can afford upper class lifestyles and pay 2,000 dollars per month in rent. But what market trends are showing us is that they are getting fewer,” Mwangangi says.

Meanwhile, Mwangi says that most up-market places are defined by their proximity to the city centre. “In upper-middle class areas, you can access Nairobi in 10 minutes. There, paint isn’t peeling off the buildings, security guards are stationed at the gate at all times, parking is available and big enough to accommodate all the tenants, sanitation is well organised and water is available.”

“People who live in upper-middle class areas earn at least 1,500 dollars per month. The shopping malls in their areas are spacious and attractive, with cinemas, food courts, bars, banks, supermarkets, trendy clothing stores and so on,” he adds.

Economic experts now warn these market trends are not healthy for the economy.

“More and more Kenyans will be pushed below the poverty line. Insecurity and crime will continue to ascend … because we will all be jostling for the same limited space,” Mwangi says.

Teenagers who are known to be HIV positive are treated like social pariahs, often due to lack of information among their peers. Credit: Letuka Mahe/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Nov 29 2012 (IPS)

It all started with a fight, one that would change his life forever.

It was in that moment of fighting with another teenage boy that Cedric Owino from the sprawling Mathare slum, one of Kenya’s biggest informal settlements, accidentally discovered that he was HIV positive.

Until then it had been a secret his grandmother had kept from him – for 15 years.

“While we were fighting, the mother of the other boy started shouting that I might scratch her son and infect him with HIV,” Owino, 15, tells IPS.

Consequently, a bitter argument ensued between Owino and his grandmother, who is his guardian, since he is an orphan. She confirmed that he has been HIV positive since he was a baby.

“Disclosure is not easy,” Mwema Omollo, Owino’s grandmother, tells IPS. “If you tell your child, you fear that it will change how they live. People are still very much afraid of HIV. My daughter refused to take antiretroviral (ARV) drugs when she discovered that she was HIV positive. I didn’t want this to become Cedric’s fate too.”

Her daughter was afraid that if she did take ARVs, people in her community who dispensed the medication would realise her status.

Since he found out, Owino has twice attempted suicide.

“My family knew I was infected, why tell me that the drugs I take are for asthma, while they know it’s because I am HIV positive?” he asks. He dropped out of grade eight at the Young Stars Academy soon after discovering his status.

Owino is not the only teenager struggling to come to terms with his status. Anthony Andega, another HIV positive 15-year-old, also tried to commit suicide when he found out two years ago.

He cut himself with a knife. But because of the stigma surrounding the virus, people refused to come to his aid. A friend of Andega’s later told him that even though he had been bleeding profusely, people refused to touch or help him.

“No one wants to touch where you have touched. You become isolated,” Andega tells IPS. Not only that, but the news of his status spread.

“In this neighbourhood, we go to the same schools. If people know you have HIV, this information is spread all over school,” he says.

The Kenya Population Data Sheet says stigma towards adolescents and teenagers living with HIV is high, with “55 percent of adolescents interviewed indicating that they preferred that the HIV status of their family members be kept secret.”

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, of adults aged 15 to 64 years, an estimated 7.1 percent, or 1.4 million, are living with HIV in Kenya. Further, among youth aged 15 to 24 years, 3.8 percent are infected, rivalling older adults aged 50 to 64, whose prevalence is five percent.

Demonstrators against the suspension of Round 11 of Global Funding for Aids, TB and Malaria, earlier in the year. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Doctors Without Borders, which has worked in Mathare with caregivers to improve the rate of disclosure among families affected by HIV, reports that only two percent of family members disclose their status to each other.

It is an issue of concern. Ann Mburu, a nurse who works for Adolescents Count Today (ACT), a project targeting HIV positive teenagers or those who have been affected by HIV, says “the number of HIV positive adolescents is likely to increase as most adolescents practice sex with their peers without any knowledge of their status.”

“Since parents and guardians don’t easily disclose to older children who are infected, HIV/AIDS will remain a big blow to the community with increased stigmatisation and discrimination due to the secrecy,” she says

Family Health Options Kenya (FHOK) has rolled out ACT in Thika in Central Kenya, and in Eldoret and Nakuru in the Rift Valley region.

“Despite 22 percent of boys and 11 percent of girls having had sex by the age of 15, 60 percent of adolescents considered themselves not to be at risk of HIV infection,” explains Esther Muketo, programme manager at FHOK. National figures are unavailable.

Paediatrician Dr. Alice Muchemi has seen many teenagers grapple with their HIV status.

“Teenage years are often difficult, self-confidence is usually fragile. Rejection from the opposite sex is often viewed as a tragedy. Their bodies are also hungry to indulge in sex. But teenagers who are known to be HIV positive are treated like social pariahs, often due to lack of information among their peers,” Muchemi tells IPS.

Kenya’s National Guidelines for HIV Testing and Counselling permit health workers to inform children “who are pregnant, married, or sexually active” of their HIV status. But this does not always happen.

“Since sexually active children do not always disclose that they are having sex, and because it’s not expected that they are, they are also not told that they are HIV positive,” Muchemi explains.

Before discovering that he was HIV positive, Owino had been sexually active for a year and had only used a condom on one occasion.

“Just like most boys here, we have sex when an opportunity presents itself. I thought of HIV as a disease for grown-ups,” Owino justifies.

Now that he knows his status he has not attempted to contact his former partners. “Mathare is a big slum, I don’t know where these girls live now. Even if people know about my status, I am not going to talk about it,” he says.

According to Plan Kenya, which carried out a study among HIV positive adolescents aged 10 to 19 years in Nairobi and the Nyanza region, “most HIV positive adolescents are or intend to be involved in sexual relationships. More than four-fifths have been in a sexual relationship and more than two-thirds of these are still in a relationship.” Nyanza has the highest prevalence of HIV in Kenya, almost twice the national prevalence at 15.3 percent.

Paul Ndegwa, an HIV positive activist, says that while the government is succeeding in its fight against paediatric HIV, it is largely ignoring the needs of HIV positive teenagers. According to UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, there has been a 40 percent reduction in new infections among children in Kenya.

“The problem is in the transition into adolescence and teenage years. You are dealing with young people who are at an age where they don’t communicate well. The needs of HIV positive teenagers are real and they are ignored just the same way the sexual and reproductive health needs of teens in general are ignored,” he tells IPS.