schooling, have chosen t o remain rural. Some rural residents have moved t o another dis- trict for employment or t o take advantage of opportunities presented b y aland settlement scheme, but they remain rural.
T o be rural in a setting, where potential entrepreneurs have been siphoned off to employment opportunities in town, is a struggle t o maintain a mere existence. There are virtually no possibilities for obtaining a relatively larger portion of the national income.
An example of the philosophy of life such a struggle engenders is provided by Gwyer (1972, p. 4 ) : "We have tilled this soil ever since time immemorial; we are as poor as ever:
if you want t o live as poor as we d o then stay with us and enjoy our poverty." This quote was taken from an examination answer in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Nairobi. It is reputed t o represent the views of parents, as expressed t o their children, in Meru district.
F o r such rural residents the most successful avenue of escape from persistent poverty has been modern sector employment, usually in the towns. The government basically has granted t o rural residents who so desire the right t o play the urban employment lottery.
Those who fail t o win a level of income superior t o their rural alternative return home.
Other "losers" have chosen t o remain in town and struggle there for an existence or they have moved o n t o try their fortunes in some other town (see Figure 11 .I).
Our discussion of policy options that attack the symptoms of rural-to-urban labor flows indicates that these policies provide hope for little more than marginal changes.
Their potential benefits are limited because they d o not deal directly with the underlying causes of the migration. Also, at several points it was noted that effective policy action was not likely because of the constraining effect of the existing economic and political structures.
It has been argued by some that fundamental change via policy action is unlikely in Kenya because present decision-makers will not act contrary t o their own vested interests.
There is considerable truth in this, but the relevant options are not whether particular
policies are accepted o r ignored. As Findley observes (1977, p. 1 1 I): "
.
. . the lack of a decision about migration is a decision in itself. Even in the absence of a conscious policy on population distribution, national agricultural and urban development policies constitute a migration strategy ."Kenya's existing migration strategy will arrive at its own logical conclusion: access t o quality education limited primarily t o the children of the wealthy will generate sharp class divisions; continuation of existing rates of urban in-migration will exceed the capacity of the urban centers t o cope with their populations; increasing landlessness and rising unemployment will exert growing pressure on the economic and political structures. In the words of Gutkind: the energy of despair is turning into an anger of despair and is likely heading toward an explosion of despair.
A society that chooses t o act before environmental factors force action typically has more directions t o pursue and more ways t o proceed. The concluding remarks here are an attempt t o identify the changes that must be considered seriously if Kenya is t o avoid being forced into one particular course of development.
The ongoing development of the Kenyan economy and a more equitable distribu- tion of the benefits of development are already the explicit objectives of Kenya's develop- ment plans. A variety of partial solutions for the realization of these goals has been pro- posed. They include: an effective family planning program, ongoing educational reform, accelerated rural development, a comprehensive income policy, and a substantial change in government policy toward informal sector activity.
Each proposal has its own partial validity but all share a presupposition that a solu- tion can be imposed in some manner from above. Very little attention has been devoted t o changing the environment within which the Kenyan people make their day-to-day decisions.
For the 60 percent at the bottom of Kenya's income scale life is dominated by their environment. For them the environment has merely become more complex. Now it is not merely the vagaries of the weather, which can mean temporary prosperity o r starvation;
they are subjected also t o the ramifications of the new technology in the modern sector.
But, as a people, they are limited still t o merely responding t o such changes. F o r these poor, technology has not become a recognized tool, something t o be used t o obtain a degree of mastery over one's environment, making possible more than merely a day-to- day struggle for existence.
Policy action t o change this situation must alter the economic environment, making it more conducive for the transition for the people from being mere reactors t o becoming active participants in the development process. The key elements t o the appropriate environment are access t o the means of production, technology, and markets and the incentive system that motivates action.
Given that most of the people are rural and will remain so for some time, the most important resource t o which access will be imperative is arable land. The evidence shows small farms in Kenya t o be relatively efficient in output per unit of land (Singer and Jolly 1973). In addition Gwyer (1972, pp. 5-6) cites evidence from Nyeri district that shows that a combination of land registration and crop intensification on small farms has gen- erated substantial employment gains. Both maximum output per unit of land and labor intensive production techniques are important elements of Kenya's longer-term objectives.
The studies cited here indicate that increased access t o land for the rural poor need n o t be
viewed as an objective with a substantial opportunity cost, in the form of reduced agricul- tural output, for the Kenyan economy.
Crop intensification by small farmers with limited resources requires a range of sup- porting elements. First. there must be ready access t o markets and t o required inputs that have t o be purchased. The physical aspect of access, roads, is being developed at a com- mendable rate in Kenya. For small farmers, some initial organizational assistance and institutional support may be required t o aid in initiating the agricultural development process. The latter would involve establishing local savings and lending institutions, local processing facilities, and local buying and selling facilities. Also, connecting feeder roads may be required. Means for decentralizing decisions on how local tax revenues are t o be spent should be devised as well.
Although small farmers have been shown t o be responsive t o market opportunities they typically d o not have ready access t o existing and emerging technology. Public pol- icy can increase their access by demonstrating the advantages of alternative technologies in such areas as new crops, improved seeds, and alternative farming techniques. For small businesses, access to technology would include both new products as well as alternative production methods. Family planning methods are another form of technology that would be beneficial t o rural society as a whole.
Access t o means of production, markets, and technology is only part of the rural development process. If farmers are to respond with new production methods and renewed effort, an adequate return for their effort will be required. A weakness of previous plans has been the omission of a system of appropriate production incentives. Specifically,inter- nal pricing policies, the price of foreign exchange, the various subsidies paid, and the cost of credit need to be built into the development plans if their objectives with reference t o employment and income redistribution are t o be realized. What is directly relevant for an employment policy premised heavily on rural development is the internal terms of trade.
The evidence indicates that they have been turning against agriculture and in favor of the industrial sector in the postindependence period (Public Service Structure and Remunera- tion Commission 1971, p. 42). This process needs t o be reversed and the implicit tax on agricultural exports, in the form of an overvalued exchange rate, needs t o be reassessed carefully.
In addition t o providing a new set of positive inducements for rural development there is a need t o minimize the disincentive in the formal sector of an adverse demonstra- tion effect and inappropriate wages paid within "sheltered" employment. T o dismantle what exists already is always more difficult than to start something new. An appropriate starting point would be the announcement of the intent of phasing o u t the import substi- tution industries requiring substantial rates of effective tariff protection. This would p u t pressure on the firms involved t o rely more on locally produced inputs and t o adopt employment strategies that would enable them t o be competitive o n the international market. Also, for new firms wanting t o start up and for the purposes of negotiating for foreign aid, an explicit plan of action would provide the criteria for defining terms that would make the firms' production and the proposed aid contribute t o Kenya's overall development objectives.
The discussion above has focused primarily on rural development. A corresponding policy shift t o provide small-scale, urban-based firms with improved access t o means of production, markets, and technology and to provide them with an appropriate set of
production incentives is called for. This dimension of the elnployment strategy has been developed a t length by the lrltrrnational Labour Office employment mission in its recom- mendations with reference t o the informal sector ( I 972, p p . 21-77), Althoi~gh we feel that the report is overly optimistic. in that the informal sector is not likely t o serve as a leading sector. we concur that such small businesses provide the output that meets most of the needs of the lower-income groups. Also, these firms use labor intensive technology.
Hence. the promotion and expansion of small-scale businesses can serve as an integral part of an overall employment strategy. The migration effects of such employment creation will be less than comparable job creation in the formal sector.
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